


Departures and Arrivals

by waterwings



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Airplanes, Airports, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, And then they were seatmates, Baz's first time flying coach, Dubious Emotional Support Animals, Flying with Babies, M/M, Mutual Pining, Seat Kickers, Shoe Removal, Slow Burn, Sweet Potato Lattes, Transcontinental Flight, Turbulence (in every sense of the word)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterwings/pseuds/waterwings
Summary: The flight from Incheon International to Heathrow airport is not pleasant: 12 hours of uninterrupted cruise, the kind of trip that breeds blood clots in your legs, that could bore the unprepared mind to death.Simon is flying back to London after two years abroad and Baz is returning from a business trip.When an unexpected overbooking lands Baz-I've-never-flown-economy Pitch in coach, Baz is sure that his travel plans cannot get any worse.Until he meets the idiot sitting next to him. A golden-haired nightmare named Simon Snow.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 572
Kudos: 387





	1. Departures

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the goddess-in-human-form [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading this madness.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

Airports have always seemed strange to me. They’re these sites of intense emotion but they’re also just...sterile. Efficient. Tubes of recycled air.

It’s fucking weird.

My phone is slick against my cheek, and Penny’s voice is blasting through the speaker. "Are you okay? Are you lost? Do you need me to start translating signage?” Her words come out in a rush.

“I’m fine. I’m at the airport.”

“You got off the subway at Incheon International?”

“Yes, Penny.” I know I’ve got the directional awareness of a lump of cheese, but “it was the last stop," I growl at her. "There was nowhere else to go. No way to fuck it up.”

I can feel my cell phone slipping down my shoulder.

“Simon,” she says, the judgement in her voice clear across counties. “Your first week here, you stayed on a city bus, on loop, for three hours.”

“That was one time—”

“You missed your first four classes!”

“You’re not helping me right now,” I grumble into the receiver.

It's been two years, and I'm still not sure what made me do it. Sign up to teach in a country I’d never really heard of.

Don't know why I took that pamphlet from the nice looking man at the career fair. (It could’ve been exactly that: he was nice.) (Nice to me when I was trying to figure out how to take on the world after graduation.) (Nice to me when I was so fucking scared.)

I used to dream about leaving all the time (at least, I did at first). Had detailed fantasies of just getting on a plane and fucking off into the jet stream. But now...now that I’m actually doing it, the pain of leaving is rising like bile in my throat.

Penny’s telltale sigh of exasperation moves between radio waves. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I look around at the giant grey monster that is Incheon International airport. I feel like a dark elf emerging from the depths—of the underground subway rather than generations of subterranean existence, but still. “I think I can take it from here.”

“You know we’re gonna Skype every day, right?”

“Every day,” I agree, trying to control the swell of emotion. Penny is the first person I met here. She walked right up to me, stuck out her hand, and told me that she we’d make great friends.

“Love you, Simon.”

Everything is silent except for the sound of my cheek scraping against the speaker.

“You too, Pen.”

“Call me when you land, okay?”

“I promise.” I let the phone drop into my palm and end the call. I can’t take any more emotion today. I’ve already said goodbye to my students, my teachers, Penny. The hard part of the day was supposed to be over.

All that’s left to do it get on that fucking airplane.

I take a deep breath, pocket my phone, adjust the straps on my backpack, and stomp into the airport proper.

Incheon International feels like the future. The sun shines soft grey through giant walls of glass and it sets everything glimmering, every variation of shiny imaginable. Inside, bodies hurry back and forth like they know where they’re going—walking with a purpose that I just don’t have.

I fucking hate airports.

**Baz**

Airports are vile receptacles of messy tears and public displays of sickly sweetness.

They are the slush fund for broken hearts. A perilous finger trap for grand romantic gestures and words that should be left poetically unsaid.

(They’re a painful reminder of the loneliness breeding in my cells.)

It’s been years. Years and years. But still, the memories sting, still wrap their fingers around my heart and squeezes every drop of sentiment, still make me choke as I walk through the automatic Departure doors.

I’m here, walking through them now, and I’m there, all those years ago, trailing behind her black peacoat as it was buffeted by the wind.

My mother always travelled with a simple black carry on. “Backpacks, grocery bags, and checked luggage are all recipes for disaster, Basil. Do not give an airline the ability to disappoint you. Because they will. At every opportunity.”

We flew together often—crossing the Atlantic to manage the North American offices in much the same way I am now with our East Asian expansion. I was never left behind, never deposited in the loving arms of another caretaker or nanny. When she travelled, so did I.

Transatlantic flights were normalized, a part of my life because it meant that I got to be with her. Two Pitches striding across the linoleum, crossing the sea of grey with an efficiency that betrayed the regularity with which we dashed from one end of the world to another.

With her, the airport was magic. A gate to another world.

It is the space in which her absence is most obvious. A missing tooth, a wound that refuses to heal, a missed step in the middle of the night. In every other context, I carry on. But not here.

I move swiftly towards the escalator and tuck my carry on against my thigh (simple and black. A lesson learned from a mother who knew best) as the giant metal staircase spirits me up to the second floor.

It doesn’t seem to matter which airport it is—from Heathrow to LAX, the melancholy overpowers my better judgement. In these spaces, vacuous and efficient, I can see the lines that loneliness has drawn around my heart. Lines that I’m too scared to cross. To colour outside of. To live.

I fucking hate airports. 

**Simon**

I can already taste the recycled air at the back of my throat and I’m not even through security. There’s a giant stack of plastic bins on the conveyer belt, and the people in front of me are handling them like Tupperware. The man beside me is taking off his shoes.

Where do people learn what to do and how to act and what parts of their outfit to remove? Did their parents show them the steps required for travel? 

I suppose I could’ve googled it.

(My palms are starting to sweat.)

Can everyone see how shitty at this I am? 

(My breaths are starting to race.)

I had a full blown panic attack on the plane ride over here. Have had a few regular freak outs on public transit in Seoul.

(My fingernails are carving half moons into the meat of my palms.) 

Fuck me. Might be having another one right now.

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

I feel like I’m drinking air through a straw.

 _Stay calm_ , I remind my brain, but logic has cartwheeled away.

I try to pick something to focus on. Something to ground me. 

My manic eyes see a world filled with cheap Christmas decorations and empty faces. All that fucking grey. Nothing to latch on to. Nothing that stands out. 

Until I see him. 

Standing in the security queue to my right. Tall, dark, and…fit as fuck.

_That’ll do._

I latch onto him, narrowing everything in this stupid place down to the perfect slope of his shoulders.

Dark hair just long enough to touch the back of his neck. The lines of his face are sharp, but in a way that makes me want to hold his cheeks with both hands.

His hair would be soft. I can practically feel it between my fingers.

I try to hear his voice. He’s definitely got perfect fucking pronunciation. Probably'd be a great teacher here. The kids always struggled with my sloppy sentences, their attention snagging on my accent, even after I stopped stumbling over my words.

Bet he smells properly posh. Like clean laundry. Or maybe pine trees.

I can’t imagine how he tastes…but I find myself wishing that I could.

My stomach is churning, but for reasons completely unrelated to feelings of panic. 

“Do you have any liquids, gels, or aerosols?”

I look up at the security agent as I hastily dump my backpack into the plastic bin. My body is inching back towards equilibrium, my fears no longer boiling over.

“Nope. Just a bunch of random stuff. You know. All those extras you forget to pack?” I give the agent my friendliest look I can muster, hoping her flawless skin will crack into a smile. Even a little one will do.

Not even a dimple. She looks at the giant bulbous mass that is my knapsack with open suspicion. “Boarding pass, please.” Maybe the undercut makes me look dodgy.

I drag the crumpled piece of paper from my back pocket. 

“Are you travelling alone?”

I can’t help but bristle. This question feels like a personal attack.

_Yeah, there’s no one here with me. Yeah, I’m alone. And yeah, no one’s gonna be there when I land either. Is that what you want to hear?_

“I guess,” is all I manage.

“You guess?”

“Yeah. Yes, I’m travelling alone.”

She nods and hands me back my boarding pass. “Please place your shoes, belt, and any metal you may be wearing in the bin.”

By the time they’re done rustling around inside my backpack (throwing out my water bottle, my shampoo, and my pre-packed fish fingers) (no one told me you couldn’t bring that on an airplane) (where do you even find this shit out?), tall, dark, and fit as fuck is long gone.

Too bad. I would’ve liked to know him. Maybe bump into him by accident, just so that I could apologize and then we’d get to talking and—

Fuck, I need to stop fantasizing. Projecting my most hopeless insecurities onto every handsome passerby isn’t great for my mental health.

It’s not even like I'm always dreaming about some kind of romantic moment at the airport. 

No.

The thing that I’ve always wanted—that pale ugly thing buried in a place I don’t let myself look—is someone to meet _me_ here. To care enough to show up, to refresh the arrivals information on their phone. To be standing there, waiting for me to come through the gate. Maybe they’d be excited (just for me). Maybe they’d throw their arms wide open and squeeze (just for me) 

It would be something like family.

Never been in the cards for me—not really. I hate how much I wish it were. That I had someone who cared enough to cry when they saw me sliding down the escalator. (That sounds a bit fucked up, wanting someone to cry for me) (I don’t want people to be sad. That’s not it) (I think I just want...someone) (I dunno. It’s dumb).

I slip my hoodie back over my head, feeling my curls spring through the worn fabric (I always wear this hoodie when I’m feeling nervous) (or sad) (or scared) (And I’m feeling all of those things now).

I hate fucking airports.

**Baz**

I’ve watched a hundred goodbyes at the threshold separating the public space in the airport and the secure area. Bawling children, copious amounts of salty PDA.

Looking down my nose at these pitiful displays is much easier than remembering my own. 

“I’ll be back in eight days,” she’d said.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Whenever she left, I went with her. Whenever the Toronto offices required a CFO, I was never far behind.

All my memories of her have me looking up. Which is fitting, really. Because I always looked up to her. I always will.

Returning to this moment sends the systematized organization of my internal thoughts into chaos. In any other venue, I can compartmentalize the memories into a numb oblivion.

At the airport though, the memories are a scab that I can’t help but pick.

“I don’t understand why I have to stay here.” My last words to her were filled with the pouty angst of a twelve year old.

“Well, end of the year exams do seem fairly important.” My mother’s voice was always on the edge of laughter. If I close my eyes, I can still hear it.

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed,” she’d said, kneeling down and pulling my hands into hers. “I’ll be back for your concerto next week.”

“I’ll make sure to practice.” My voice warbled, struggling with the words. I would not cry at the airport. I refused.

Every time this memory crashes into me, I wish I’d let her see how much I was going to miss her. The regret of my contained feelings ties the strings of my heart into knots. 

“I’m sure you will,” she said, kissing the top of my head.

Then she turned—no fanfare or semantics—with her shoulders squared against the gate, her simple black carry on dragging behind her. I watched her hand her ticket to the gate attendant. Watched them scan her boarding pass. Heard the beep.

I hear it again now, and reach my hand out. It’s a reflex, born out of the well-trodden flight paths I traverse every year. These days, security at the airport is old hat.

I never saw her again.

I hate fucking airports.


	2. Hour 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sweet potato lattes, dignified lounging, and a tableau of the worst possible first impression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the divine [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

Penny says I approach my life like it’s an adventure story, like I’m the hero and there’s a bunch of mini bosses in my way that I need to vanquish. Penny said a lot of stuff like that. 

Priority one: find my gate. In this sprawling wasteland of grey and glass, the chances of me getting lost are pretty high. Once there, I have a base of operations.

I get there eventually. Incheon to Heathrow. Gate 267. Everything matches. Location mentally pinned.

Now that home base is acquired, I must venture out for sustenance. One of the first lessons I learned after landing in this place was that Koreans make great food.

I’d never tell her, but I might miss the food almost as much as Penny. The melt-your-face spice, the soups that turn your nostrils to flowing culverts. The all-you-can eat barbecue was a slice of heaven in a world that was (at least at first) really fucking scary.

My backpack is cutting stripes into my shoulders as I wander down the terminal. Pretty sure there’s a dolsot bibimbap place up here somewhere. I can smell the rice crisping against the bottom of the stone bowl.

 _Roll for nostril sensitivity,_ Penny would say. _Perfect fucking 20._

I feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs as I start to salivate, my pace quickening in anticipation. Penny would be the first to say it: where food is concerned, I am relentless.

**Baz**

I’ve flown this route before. Incheon to Heathrow is _not_ a pleasant flight. Twelve hours of uninterrupted cruise, the kind of trip that breeds blood clots in your legs, that could bore the unprepared mind to death (I have an e-reader and tablet stowed in the front pouch of my carry on for just such emergencies). 

I know that eating before a journey across the content in a tin can is in my best interest; even first class airplane food is vile. Unfortunately, most of the local cuisine is designed to send your body into emergency conditions—spicy to the point that it will melt your face, steaming hot and ready to singe the unguarded fingertip. Delicious (as I learned during my first visit to Seoul) but also a foreign invader to the unprepared intestinal tract (as I learned later that night).

I queue in front of Starbucks instead. It’s time to trick my mind into believing that a latte is also a meal (in terms of calorie content, it’s a close thing).

As I wait for the line to move (tapping my foot to the tune of some horrific holiday jingle) something bronze catches the light and my attention. Curls. Golden and thick.

Attached to the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

I can’t tell if my body is responding to the prospect of caffeine or the way he is looking at the dolsot bibimbap that the server is placing in front of his face. 

_He could look at me like that,_ I think and blush immediately. _Like I’m something to eat._

**Simon**

If I ever crave someone else’s company the way that I crave dolsot bibimbap, I think that’s how I’ll know I wanna be with them forever.

I’m losing two layers of skin off the top of my tongue.

I don’t care.

**Baz**

It’s rude to stare. A lifetime of repressed desire and aggressive manners is revolting inside my skull, insisting that I’m breaking some unspoken rule.

As I try to drag my eyes away from this herculean creature sitting before me, I decide that good breeding can fuck off for the day. I let my eyes rove over him, ravenous for details.

He’s close enough that I can see the freckles spattered haphazardly across his face. There’s a lovely looking mole just under his eye. There are soft wrinkles around his eyes (smile lines) and the way he licks his lips—

_I want to capture his bottom lip between my teeth and…_

I suddenly feel very hot in my button down.

“Next!”

A barista is waving me up to the counter.

“Yes.” My voice squeaks and I don’t even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed. “I’ll have a caramel mocha breve.”

“We don’t have that, sir. But can I interest you in one of our sweet potato lattes?”

Hercules is still in my periphery and it’s making it very hard to pay attention.

“Yes yes, that’s fine,” I say, waving my Visa over the card reader.

_I think I want to eat him._

There’s definitely something wrong with me.

“Your name? For the cup?”

“It’s Baz.”

**Simon**

I can’t believe it took me this long to notice. Tall, dark, and fit as fuck is standing in the Starbucks line, barely ten feet from where I’m sitting.

Can good posture also be sexy? What about the gentle crease that’s forming between his eyes? I want to smooth it with my thumb, want to pull that gangly stranger down to my level and—

 _Fuck_. Penny says it’s rude to ogle strangers. That people are so much more than their bodies, and...yeah, she’s definitely got a point.

But that doesn’t mean I have to stop staring, right? I can be discrete.

**Baz**

“Baz?”

The words feel like a loudspeaker. Jolting me out of a fantasy that my brain must have constructed to satisfy the urgency singing in my blood—because for a split second, I thought I caught Hercules staring at me.

Now that I have my latte in hand, there’s very little opportunity to hover. Airports and their fucking efficient designs. Controlled loitering. Minimal coziness. No uncomfortable seating to lounge in and enjoy the view (those fucking shoulders are triggering an autonomic response. He’s making my mouth water).

I could just…go over there. Introduce myself.

That is something I could do.

**Simon**

Maybe I should invite him over. He looks like he wants to sit. Why shouldn’t it be with me?

**Baz**

I school my body into something intentionally casual, stride over to a cement pillar a few feet away, and I slip behind it. This is not lurking, it is lounging ( _dignified lounging. Obviously_ ). I’m leaning comfortably on a neutral surface sipping my beverage (is this drink made of squash?)

I’m not stalking. I’m just appreciating the view.

Still, the shame that should be squirming in my gut is conveniently out of office. Hercules is currently using his metal chopsticks as a shovel, pushing sticky rice and the remnants of a fried egg into his mouth at alarming speeds. On anyone else, this display would be revolting. But even as a spot of Gochujang lands on his cheek, I find myself less repulsed and more keen to lick it off. 

I need to abort now before this gets out of hand.

And yet. A tiny (demonic, self-destructive, ridiculous) part of my brain wants to hover. To stand here, spying on this unreasonably handsome disaster, and maybe just say…well, I suppose I could start with “hello”?

**Simon**

Fuck it.

**Baz**

Facing this gorgeous creature seems inconceivable. I’m in a state of analysis paralysis, contemplating the timeless question (perhaps best articulated by an 80s rock icon): should I stay or should I go?

Handsome human garburator makes my decision for me. 

He’s shouldered a backpack that looks like it contains his entire life, stretching taught against the faded canvas.

 _Fuck, he’s walking over_. 

Maybe if I turn around, he won’t notice me. I can blend in with the pillar, I can escape into the socially acceptable diversionary tactic that is my iPhone.

_Closer. Fuck. I should leave now._

I hear loud feet smacking against polished tile.

Perhaps running is the more optimal choice. Once we leave this airport, I’ll never see him again. The likelihood that he is from London is slim. I should probably run.

_Yes. Yes let’s do that._

I move out from behind the pillar and am poised to make my escape—

—when a large backpack collides with the back of my neck.

My phone is a projectile, crashing against the tile and skittering across the floor. And my sweet potato latte…

**Simon**

“You fucking imbecile—” he starts to say, rounding on me. The fury on his face is sculpting his features into shapes that should be setting off warning bells: caution, aggressive monster in the building.

I _should_ be running the other way.

But I’m not. I’m standing stock still. He’s a vampire and I’m in his fucking thrall. I can’t move.

Instead, I’m frozen in place, thinking about what he smells like. _Why does he smell like yams? That’s not what I imagined..._

The events of the last five seconds crash into me so hard my knees buckle.

I’ve whacked him with my knapsack. (It’s just so large. I barely have any control of the thing.)

“You came out of nowhere!” It’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth. I feel my body shift, my shoulders square. Fighting stance. Sixteen years as a foster kid makes it a reflex.

“I most certainly did not!”

He’s probably right. I knocked a 200,000 Won bottle of cologne off the shelf in duty free on my way down two years ago. Started my life here in the negative (the first Korean word I learned wasn’t hello or thank you, but a bastardization of “I’m sorry”). 

I’m not about to tell him that. And I’m definitely not one to back down from a fight.

“C’mon, don’t be a prat. I didn’t see you. I’m…” And then the sins of my mistake come into full view. The battle wounds of my excitement.

_What have I done?_

He’s dumped some awful sticky thing into his lap. Ground zero of the sugary blast is his crotch, but there’s flecks of orange all over his wrinkle-free shirt.

_Fuck, I just wanted to come and say “hi.”_

“Oh no.” I don’t know what else to say.

Now that I’m closer (so close), I can see his eyes, how they’re this strange grey colour, like the sky right before it rains, grey swirling into something cumulus. _They're lovely_. And pissed. Beyond pissed. Murderous.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare at the massacre you’ve made of my clothing?”

“Uh—” My head swivels, eyes desperately searching for some solution, and lands on the counter with the condiments and… _napkins. Yes._

“Wait here,” I say, patting tall, dark, and fit as fuck on the shoulder (his eyes narrow, and for a second, I think he might actually be plotting my death), before dashing away. 

_Well, that’s not exactly how I thought that would go._

**Baz**

“Right,” he says, as he comes hustling back towards me, two fistfuls of cheap napkins flapping between his fingers. “I’ll get you right fixed up. Don’t even worry.”

My rage is a living thing, but my words haven’t quite caught up.

“I’m gonna fix this,” he says, pressing the napkins against my shirt, stubby fingers touching my chest.

I’m filled with a strange combination of hate and lust that’s making my thoughts a hazy shade of airport.

“We can sop up all the juice from your clothes and then maybe wash them in the sink—” But I’m not listening, because he’s started to pat lower, closer to the largest spill.

This bumbling idiot is about to grope me. Somehow, he doesn’t seem to have realized it. 

“Please stop manhandling me,” I hiss, grabbing his wrists and pushing. I need him away or I’m going to explode (whether in anger or...something _else_ ) (neither are appropriate for the public spectacle that is this fucking airport).

“Take it easy! I’m just trying to help!”

“By groping me?” I think I hear my voice crack and feel the need to remind myself I am 25 years old.

The shift from pale and freckled to violent scarlet happens at light speed. “I’m not…I mean…I didn’t…”

“Use your words,” I snap, dropping his hands and backing away slowly. I run my fingers through my hair, forgetting that they’re sticky.

 _Fuck._ _I’m going to light this idiot on fire._

“I’m…oh god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t…I mean…”

I’m not listening to his blathering. I need to escape to the bathroom. Immediately. If I get an erection, in the middle of the fucking airport, with some hot potato latte seeping through my pants, I will never forgive myself.

“Korean Airlines is paging—”

“I’m sorry! Don’t run away—” _Why is he still talking?_

“—the following passenger—”

“Would you just let me be—” _I’m going to kill him._

“—Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch—”

“That’s me!” I’m shouting and I don’t know why.

We both stop, freeze frame in a tableau of the worst possible first impression, listening to the flat voice speaking overhead.

“—to gate 267. Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch to gate 267. Thank you.”

“Wait,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me, suspicion creasing between his brow. “Your name’s Tyrannus? Like. A dinosaur?”

“If there were not rules governing societal expectations for appropriate behaviour, I would skin you right here in the middle of this grey shit hole.” I try to brush some of the droplets of orange liquid from my lap, all while taking slow steps away from this ridiculous man.

“Are you sure that I can’t—”

“Just stop,” I say, turning away from him and stalking towards my departure gate.

**Simon**

Tall, dark, and dangerous manages to look dignified as he rushes away. He stoops down to pick up his iPhone (which I must’ve sent flying) (with my luck, the screen’ll be wrecked).

I’m such a fucking twat. I barely managed a fantasy about someone. And the moment that fantasy tiptoes towards some kind of possibility? My body jumps into action, scaring away the fittest bloke I’ve ever seen with a solid thump to the back of the head.

_Just once, I want something to go right in the romance department. Is that so much to ask?_

It’s not like I’ve got much experience. The only real relationship I’ve had was with Agatha, and that was a huge fucking mess. 

She was a teacher at the middle school next to mine and was my obsession for months. Talking to her for the first time felt like someone was playing cat’s cradle with my vocal chords.

“Dya wanna…eat…for gimbap…or not…you’re lovely…” She just tilted her perfect head to the side, looking at me with pitying appraisal. I gulped and scraped the bottom of my love-sick brain for something (anything!) to say. “Uh…pretty hair…?”

I have no idea why she agreed to go out with me (she never did tell me). Penny chalks it up to pity, but then, she never liked us together.

Penny’s usually right, but I didn’t want her to be right about this. Agatha felt like the kind of person you could settle down with. Someone who could be your family. End game and happily ever after and all that.

But as my contract started to wind down, after I asked if I should renew, she had nothing to say. “Do you want to keep seeing each other?” I’d asked, shuffling from foot to foot. “You know, when I go home?”

There’d been kindness in her eyes, but tiredness too. “Honestly, Simon? No.”

 _No._ A single word. So finite. “We can fix this.” It was a plea, a hail mary that I knew was likely to miss the mark. I tried anyway.

“Probably, but I don’t want to.”

“But you’re my—”

“Your what?”

“My happy ending.” The words were small. Pathetic.

“Oh Simon,” she’d said, finally reaching out to touch me. “I don’t want to be anyone’s happy ending. I want…” She tilted her head up, and the cold winter sun had turned the soft gold to white. “I want to be someone’s right now, you know?”

It’d been brutal. I spent my last few days in Korea crying into the cheap cushions of Penny’s couch. But at least she hadn’t threatened to skin me alive in public.

Whatever. I’ll probably never see him again.

What kind of name is Tyrannus anyway?

**Baz**

I’m still a mess as I approach the desk at the gate (I haven’t had time to change out of my slacks, and the coffee is sticky against my skin).

“Can I help you?”

My nerves have been worn down to the nub and the crack that is rippling up the front-facing screen of my phone is not helping matters.

_If I ever see him again, I’m going to stick him, curls first, into the escalator belt._

I try to tape the scraps of politeness back together with grammar. “Yes. You paged me overhead.”

“Are you Tyrannus?”

“It’s Baz, actually.”

Her face pinches with confusion. “So you’re not Tyrannus?”

“Yes, I am. It’s just that I don’t usually go by my first name—”

But she’s stopped listening. “Passport please.”

I try not to sigh, try to hold on to whatever poise I have left. I place my maroon passport in her hands and bite the inside of my cheek.

“So you **_are_ ** Tyrannus?”

_The news tonight is going to feature a junior executive turned homicidal maniac if this day doesn’t turn around._

“Yes.” No explanation seems like the path of least resistance.

“Right, Mr. Grimm-Pitch, I have some good and bad news.”

_No._

“The first-class cabin for the flight from Incheon to Heathrow has been overbooked.”

_This can’t be happening._

“But, good news!” she says, as if she can head off my anger with canned holiday cheer. “I can offer you a re-booking for December 27th. I’ll even waive the fee for the flight change.”

She’s smiling at me like a different flight four days from now (and after Christmas) is an acceptable alternative.

I take a deep breath, leashing my rage. “I’m sorry, that isn’t going to work.”

“Mr. Grimm-Pitch…”

“I demand that you provide the rationale for bumping me over the other passengers.”

“That’s private information, Tyrannus…”

“It’s. Baz.” I feel the muscle in my jaw throbbing.

“Look,” the customer-service mask slips just a touch. “Unless you want to fly coach, you’re not getting out of here until—”

“Fine,” I snap.

“Excuse me?”

I grit my teeth. _If it means getting home for Christmas._ “Coach is acceptable.”

“Oh,” she says, smiling again. “Well, that’s an excellent solution.” I know I shouldn’t hate her, I know she’s just doing her job and that it’s the busiest time of the year. But I do. I hate her so much.

“I have a seat available in the Emergency Exit row. It provides nearly as much leg room as you would’ve had in first class.”

It’s a blatant lie, but at this point, I don’t have the energy to argue.

“I’ll ensure the difference in the balance is refunded to your credit card.” I can hear the sound of a new boarding pass printing.

“Thank you for being so accommodating Mr. Grimm-Pitch. Please don’t go far. We’re about to start boarding,” she says, handing me my new ticket, her smile back in place. “I hope you have a pleasant flight.”


	3. Hour 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sugar spun condensation, a life crammed into small spaces, and the hands we cannot hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to begin this chapter with a request for one (just one!) suspension of disbelief for this fic. Most 747s have three seats on the left side of the plane, four seats in the middle, and another three on the right. 
> 
> I toyed with having a vacant middle seat, for the realism it would lend the fic. But, at the end of the day, I wanted our boys as close together as possible. Please forgive (and indulge) me <3
> 
> Thank you to the magnificent [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Baz**

Most of the passengers have boarded by the time I return to the gate. Changing in an airport bathroom is not a memory I will savour (I never dreamed I’d have to scrub sweet potato from my leg hair). Still, I was able to peel off my soiled clothing and slip into something simpler—a pair of jeans and a dark long sleeve. I’m horrifically under-dressed, even for the airport.

 _I’m flying coach_ , I remember, and try not to focus too much on this detail. _Dressing down hardly matters_.

Coat slung over one shoulder, carry-on luggage wheeling quietly beside me, I cross through the tunnel and out towards the massive 747.

I glance down at the flimsy paper ticket in my hand—33B. Not a window then.

_That’s disappointing._

She would always let me have the window, would always indulge my infantile need to watch the world disappear as we took off. 

The memory of my cheek squished against the thick plastic, desperate for the bird’s eye view, a warm hand squeezing my shoulder.

The rumble of the engine waking up. My mother’s voice, soft and low. “We’re climbing into the sky, little puff. Up and up and up into a world made of candy floss.”

My mother was exactly the kind of person who would imagine sugar spun condensation.

“It’s magic above the clouds.”

“Magic’s not real,” I’d whispered, but still, I hadn’t pried my eyes away from the view. The buildings were shrinking, tiny Lego blocks, barely a blip on the horizon as we climbed. “Magic’s a made-up story for little kids.”

“Are you sure about that?” she’d asked. “I’m not little anymore. And I still believe it.” Her grip on my shoulder smoothed into an open palm and started tracing circles on my back.

“Magic is all around us.”

“Show me then,” I’d said.

I still remember the long pause between my demand for the impossible and the answer she decided to give me.

“Sometimes, someone will come into your life. And they will…” I remember her voice breaking, even all these years later. I remember the way I turned to face her, remember how it felt when she pressed her pointer finger into my chest. “They will light a match inside your heart.”

“Love and magic aren’t the same thing,” I’d insisted.

“Are you sure about that?” she’d asked, her eyes deepening into a look that felt very serious. “I think that love may be some of the only magic left.” Had it been anyone else, I would have resisted the ridiculous notion. But it was my mother, and there was a tremor in her voice that added weight to this moment. 

“Like you and father?” 

She nodded. “And like me and you.”

“Hello,” the flight attendant says, taking my ticket and then directing me back (for the first time) rather than forwards into the first-class cabin. “Have a nice flight.” Her voice is professionally warm and the last vestige of sanity before I venture into the claustrophobic clusterfuck that is long-haul coach.

People are sprawled everywhere, pulling pillows and headphones, books and blankets, phones and video games from every nook and cranny of their luggage. The aisle is cluttered with backpacks and bodies. I’m suddenly certain that I saw a peacock—I would know the colourful plumage anywhere. Somewhere, a child screams.

_This is completely unaccept—_

Another infant answers the call, slicing clean through my thoughts. Screech after ear-splitting screech welcomes to me to what promises to be the longest flight of my life.

_Well. At least I know what I’m in for. I can’t imagine it will get much worse—_

My eyes see the golden curls before they flick up to check the seat number.

33.

_No._

My thoughts are catapulting towards disaster

_no no no_

as the golden nightmare looks up

_please god, anyone else_

and his clear blue eyes swallow me whole.

**Simon**

Fucking hell. Fuck a nine-toed troll. Fuck everything.

_He’s in jeans._

It’s the first thing I notice. It’s a detail that shouldn’t matter at all. I find it matters quite a lot.

Because I can’t stop staring. Those dark eyes are stretched wide.

_I need to say something that isn’t offensive._

I’ve frozen him. He’s standing stock still, as if my curls are actually snakes writhing around my head and I’m some modern Medusa.

_Fuck inoffensive. I just need to say something._

“Uh, you’re in jeans?”

The look he gives me could strip paint.

I gulp. “Look,” I start, “Ty. I know we didn’t really get off on the right—”

“What did you just call me?”

I try to swallow, but my mouth is suddenly dry. “Uh, your name is fucking long, you know? Ty seems—”

“My name is Baz, you insufferable…” he’s scrambling for words, and I get the impression he’s not the type who has to do that very often.

 _I kinda love it_. _That I’m the one making him flustered._

These are not the right thoughts for this exact moment.

“You ridiculous…you walking disaster…” He’s a volcano about to erupt. I’m not used to inspiring so much violence in a person.

“Tell me how you really feel?”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Okay, you’re tetchy about your name.” He opens his mouth to start yelling again, but I hold up a hand to shush him. “Baz it is.”

The anger should be settling down, but he still looks ready to spit lava.

“Although, if you don’t mind me saying,” I start.

“I do—”

“Baz is a pretty weird name, too.”

The muscle in his jaw is throbbing. I feel a thrill course through me, from the smile that I can’t resist all the way down to my stomach.

_I can get under his skin. And it feels good._

**Baz**

I can’t believe I ever harboured a single positive thought for this monstrosity of a man.

 _I need to change seats. I need to get as far away from him and that cheeky fucking grin that just took over his face._ For a split second, all I can think about are his hands pressing against my chest, working their way down,

down

down…

I ram the handle of my carry on back into its holster and wrench the bag up over my head. Normally, a flight attendant would have taken this from me as I boarded.

I look up, too late, and realize that the overhead compartment is already packed to bursting. _Why are there so many bags already crammed into_ my _space? This doesn’t make sense. This is not—_

“Need a hand?”

“From you?” I school my face into a look I hope is withering. “No.”

I look away from the bumbling moron (and modern approximation of a Greek god) and start to move down the aisle. _Perhaps there is more space near the back of the—_

“Just wait,” he says, getting up from his seat and moving towards me. His forearm brushes against mine. I feel my pulse start to quicken and immediately resent my cardiovascular system. 

Goldylocks reaches up and starts to shuffle the items in the compartment. A knapsack presses sideways on top of a box, which he moves to the back, and a purse, which he places in the unoccupied space near the front. A children’s toy disappears next to the satchel, a bulky suitcase is suddenly sideways and—

“Here.” He’s leaning over me. I feel his curls tickle my chin. “Let me.”

“Let you what?” I snap, forever doomed to respond to all forms of niceties with open hostility.

“Gimme your shit,” he says.

“My what—”

33A yanks my black suitcase from my hand and slips it perfectly into the overhead compartment.

Efficient spatial management should not render me speechless. And yet.

“How…”

He’s already shrugging. “Used to cramming my life into small places, I guess.”

The follow up question hovers on the tip of my tongue. _Tell me every little thing about your life, stranger. Let me taste the details of who you are._

“I was about to do that.”

“Of course you were.” Goldy is still fucking smiling.

The rational part of my brain is wailing, begging me to just turn and speak to a flight attendant. To explain that there is no way that I will be spending the next twelve hours seated beside—

“It’s Simon, by the way.” He’s inside my head. A bull in the ornately preserved china shop that are my inner thoughts. “Simon Snow.”

 _Simon Snow._ I move the words around inside my mouth, letting the feel of them roll over my tongue. Straight out of a fairy tale. More characterization than person. He’s…

Impossible. And irresistible.

Rationality loses the day. I need to know more.

“With a name that ridiculous, I don’t know how you feel entitled to criticize me.”

I slip into my seat and try to pretend that I am not acutely aware of exactly where his forearm is laying on the arm rest.

This is going to be a long flight.

**Simon**

When I was little, all the teachers would say things about how I couldn’t sit still. About how I had too much energy at the wrong times and not enough energy for the things that mattered. 

“Simon, sit still.” I can hear the echoes of my academic failure, reverberating inside my skull.

“Have you got ants in your pants, Simon?” they would ask, and I would hate them a little more.

But now. Well now, right now, I think I just might. Have ants in my pants, I mean.

Because sitting next to tall dark and—Baz… I think ants might be under-doing it. I kinda feel like my whole body’s on fire.

Fuck, I’d just gotten comfortable. Somehow, I know (with painful certainty) that I won’t get comfortable again for the next twelve fucking hours. Somehow, he’s gonna make sure of it.

 _Fuck, I think he might be the fittest bloke I’ve ever seen._ The way that his long neck slopes into his shoulders. He’s got his hair slicked back, but I can see whatever product he’s got in it starting to lose its grip. A few strands are falling into his face and I just wanna push it behind his ear.

I shift again, stretching my legs out under the seat in front of me and trying to pretend that my skin isn’t flushed. Fuck, I need to say something. Do something. How the fuck am I gonna make it through twelve hours…

“So, uh…” I feel a bead of sweat dribble down my temple. I try to ignore it. “What do you…I mean, study…I mean are there things you like…”

The bastard raises one perfect eyebrow at me (who the fuck does that?). “Are you trying to ask me something?”

“What are you?” I blurt, flailing my hands, nearly whacking him in the face.

“Are you determined to inflict bodily harm on my person? Or is this just how you treat everyone?”

“No. Fuck. I just…” So much for sitting still.

“If you could focus on the safety demonstration,” a flight attendant cuts in sharply, “that would be wonderful. Tray tables stowed. Seats in the upright position. No headsets that are not connected to the on flight entertainment.”

She smiles down at us, interrupting whatever feeble effort at conversation I’d tried to start. “We’re about to take off.”

_We’re about to take off._

I’d been so distracted by Baz’s appearance that I’d forgotten about the actual flying part of being on this airplane.

_It’s gonna be fine._

Self-talk will help me stay calm.

_The plane’s moving. We’ve started to move._

I’ll close my eyes.

_We’re not going to crash. Flying is one of the safest ways to travel._

I’ll remember to breathe.

_Safe as can be. Until it’s not. Until the plane crashes and everything starts on fire and we all die and_

I can feel my emotions spinning out of control.

_Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck._

**Baz**

Snow goes from wild gesticulations to stillness in an instant. His eyes are squeezed together so tightly, his cheeks and forehead are practically touching.

_What kind of grown man closes his eyes for take off?_

“Can we uh…” He’s talking, but his eyes are still shut up tight. The words sound like they hurt. “Switch places?” His breaths are shallow and hurried.

I love the window. The memory of my cheek, squished against plastic, that thin barrier separating me from the magical world up here above the clouds. It is still so sharp.

“Absolutely not.”

I’m not sure why I hold back this small act of kindness. Irritation, maybe. The smell of sweet potato still clinging to my leg hair. That uncomfortable twist in my stomach when I realize how scared he is.

Or maybe I’m just not a kind person—not built to accommodate or care for. Maybe, at the end of the day, I’m better off alone. Because wanting someone (giving in to any feelings that are even remotely fond) will lead to heartbreak. 

“Okay,” he gasps, eyes still closed.

We’re moving now, the plane slotting into place on the runway. I can feel the engines churning beneath my feet: a 747 is a monster of the sky. I can feel aviation's largest predator coming to life as we prepare to set sail into the clouds.

Snow can feel it too, because as soon as the engine starts to rumble, his hands wrap around the arm rest. I’m obsessed with his details: stubby fingers clinging, white knuckled and desperate. The way his mouth is pressed together, soft curls sticking to his forehead as he starts to sweat.

The violent little shakes that ripple through him.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He doesn’t answer; I’m not sure he hears me. Something (probably panic, I realize) is scrambling his neurons, smothering them before they can fire.

The pilot’s voice filters into the cabin, joining the recycled air. “Flight attendants, prepare for departure.”

Snow swallows. I watch his neck make a production of it. He’s breathing with his whole body, diaphragm expanding, ribs straining against the cheap fabric of his faded blue t-shirt.

I’m tempted to reach out. To wrap my hand around his. To give him something tactile, a squeeze maybe, and let him know that he’s not alone. That he will be alright.

But that’s ridiculous.

I lean back into my chair as the plane starts to catapult down the runway. I know that, at some point in my life, before profit margins and meetings, before flights taken alone, before the world lost its lustre, I know that takeoff used to be my favourite part of flying.

If I push all of the nonsense that has crowded my life to the side, I can still feel my mother’s hand, a gentle squeeze on my shoulder. Can hear her words, the memory’s potency still with me all these years later. _They will light a match inside your heart._

I let my head fall to the side, and I just _look_. In earnest.

I should be staring at the industrial wonder of Seoul fading against the backdrop of Korea’s mountainous terrain. I should be collecting the impossible details, the way that the cars fade to pinpricks, how the buildings shrink as the world pans out, the widest possible screen.

But I’m not.

I’m staring at him.


	4. Hour 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pulsating bowl cuts, nostril violation, and the lines we cannot cross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the chapters from here on out are on the shorter side-a snapshot in time for each hour they are up in the air. So, I'll be posting a chapter a day until the fic is done <3
> 
> Thank you to the incandescent [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading.  
> 

**Simon**

I don’t really know how long it takes for the panic to pass. All I know is that we’re at cruising altitude when I finally feel the paralysis start to seep out of my fingers and the warmth of the real world start to creep back in.

When I finally open my eyes, Baz is staring at the chair in front of him with such intensity that I’m a sure he’s gonna melt it with his mind. (He could be a superhero. He looks the type.) (All tall and stern looking, and his thighs are properly muscled.) (Not that I’m looking at his thighs.) (Not really.)

_Fuck._

I feel embarrassment pinch at the back of my mind. He probably saw all that. Watched me come apart at the seams. Panic attacks (mine anyway) are messy. Exercises in excess as the emotions I try so hard to keep in just go off, overflowing into spaces where they don’t belong.

He probably thinks I’m a fucking nutter (not completely sure he’s wrong on that charge, either).

I open my mouth, hoping that the words will follow. “I’m…well…” If we’re gonna be seat mates for the next eleven hours, I need to get this over with. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Baz turns, the sharp lines of his jaw shifting into portrait, and I almost lose my nerve. “I’m not always a mess,” I insist.

His lip twitches and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was holding back a smile. “I’ve met you twice now, Snow,” he says, his pronunciation unfairly perfect. “In both contexts, you were exactly that.”

“Exactly what?” I ask, trying to pretend that him using my last name as my moniker isn’t driving me wild (it is).

He leans in. It’s just an inch. But it feels intense. “A mess.”

Okay, the fucker is starting to piss me off.

“Hey, I’m trying—”

“A literal mess. All over me.”

_Right. The coffee fiasco._

“Now wait just a minute—”

Baz gives an exaggerated sigh (fucking drama queen). “Can we just agree to not speak to one another?”

“Wha—”

“I think silence,” he says, “is preferable to any drivel that you’ll manage to stammer out.”

“Are you a professional aresehole?” He recoils a little. As if I’m the one insulting him. (Fuck. I guess I just did.) (But he had it coming).

“When the situation requires it.”

The rounded bob of a middle-aged woman pops up in the seat behind me. She’s got the perfect nose for judgemental looks. “Excuse me—” she starts, but Baz will not be interrupted.

“And if we could institute some spatial boundaries—” he starts, but my temper flares before he can finish.

“What the fuck do you mean by that?”

“Spatial,” he says slowly, enunciating every syllable. “Boundaries.” He points at the arm rest between us. “For example, you are taking up **all** of an arm rest that is meant for two—”

“Are you already complaining about that?”

“You were clutching it, white-knuckled and inconsolable for nearly thirty minutes.”

_Did he try to console me?_

This should not be the question that is flitting through my mind right now. Not when the urge to punch his stupid perfect face is right at the fore.

“Flying makes me nervous,” I growl, trying to regulate my volume and my cursing. I kept my language under control for two whole years. And now this arsehole undoes all of that work with a half dozen sentences.

The mother in the row behind us is really staring now, half her body leaning into our space, but I can’t tear my attention away from Baz. Because he’s still talking.

“That was more than nervous,” he says, and I think I see his face soften into something worse than the condescension that was there before. Pity.

“I don’t need some posh twat feeling sorry for me.”

“No need to worry,” Baz says, all venom again. His enunciation is so sharp, he could bleed me dry.

“I’m not stupid,” I say, knowing as soon as I’ve said it that I’ve lost something.

Baz pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “Look, just…you keep to your side of the seat and I’ll keep to mine.” He gives my knapsack a swift kick for good measure, pushing it back the half inch that it had crept onto _his_ side.

I’m twelve all over again, insisting that the boys in my group home stay out of my room. “You stay on your side of the house,” I’d say, “and I’ll stay on mine, and then no one has to fight.”

We still fought. Enough that I’ve never been nervous to walk home at night, or to get into a scrap, or to live alone in a dodgy neighbourhood. Fighting stance, whenever the world tries to fuck with me.

And yet, something about Baz is still able to make me feel small.

“Fine,” I spit, slouching down in my seat and pulling my hoodie over my head. “I don’t wanna be anywhere near you anyway.”

**Baz**

“Excuse me.” A woman has emerged from the row of seats crammed behind us. She is a middle-aged creature, with entitlement etched into the folds of her face.

_Is this the madness that always goes on in coach?_

“If you need to work something out, please take it away from where my child can hear you cursing.” She points to the person in the seat next to her. It must be her teenage son, who appears to be stuck in the middle of a growth spurt (probably around fourteen years old). He is absorbed in some asinine handheld device, insulated from any external stimuli by the pixels on his screen.

“Yes, yes, please go away,” I say, waving my hand in her face.

Her bowl cut pulsates in frustration, but she sinks back down into her seat. Perhaps I should show her where the search history is located in her son’s web browser. It would probably wipe some of that indignant judgment off her pouchy face.

“Well, at least you’re like this with everyone,” Snow mumbles from somewhere underneath the folds of his hoodie.

 _Like this._ Something about the way he says that (that simple thing) hits me like a punch in the chest.

 _He’s right. I am._

Even though, sometimes, I wish I weren’t.

For a moment, I feel something I can only assume is regret.

Until the oaf leans down and starts to untie his laces. I don’t realize what’s happening until the smell starts to creep its way up into my nostrils.

No. This can’t be happening. This isn’t something people actually do. There is no way that he’s _taking off his shoes_.

“Snow.” I imbue that single syllable with all the venom I can muster. “Unless you’re in imminent threat of developing fatal blood clots, keep your bloody shoes on.”

“It’s a 12-hour flight,” he says, and even though I can’t see his face, I can almost hear him grinning. “If I keep these puppies on, the smell’s only gonna get worse. You’ll thank me for it later.”

“I will not. You may not. You—”

“This is a free country.”

I don’t have the patience to explain that we’re cruising above the clouds. That he probably has no idea which country we are flying over. I just need him to, “stop!”

“And I’m technically not crossing that line you’ve insisted on.”

“I will never forgive you.”

He turns to look at me through the tiny hole in the sweat pant material encircling his face. “I don’t need your forgiveness.” I think he’s trying to look menacing (he looks constipated). I’m about to say so, but then—

The shoes are off.

And the hair follicles in my nostrils will never be the same.

**Simon**

He wants to draw lines in the sand? (I wiggle my toes and revel in the way he shudders). Wanker thinks he can tell _me_ what to do? He wants to make this a fight?

Well fine. Good.

If he wants a war, I’ll give it to him.

In fucking long-haul coach.


	5. Hour 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pizza crusts, empathy established via cheap chocolate, and the food we cannot share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the glorious [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading and being so goddamn sturdy in her support.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Baz**

Simon Snow is simmering in a stew of his own private rage. I can practically see the thoughts churning, the evidence of his internal machinations radiating off him in waves.

_Does awkwardness have a texture?_

The air between us is so thick with...whatever _this_ is, that it's a relief when the snack cart starts to rattle its way down the aisle. 

Snow’s reaction is immediate, a basset hound startled into the awareness that a meal is approaching (I swear that I see him tasting the air).

He’s practically vibrating in his seat by the time the slight figure of a flight attendant leans in, smiling at the both of us. 

“Can I interest you in a beverage and a snack?” She waves a bag of pretzels and a small packaged cookie in our direction.

“No thank you—” the words aren’t out of my mouth before Snow is interrupting.

“I’ll have a cuppa tea, cream and sugar. And I’d love a snack!” Snow’s constitution has improved noticeably; it is as if food possesses some powerful magic that is able to summon him to battle at a moment’s notice.

The flight attendant giggles, giving him a look that is both sweet and amused. “Would you like cookies or pretzels?”

Snow’s face is suddenly in turmoil, as if this is a life and death decision. “Uh…”

The woman leans across the seat, and I realize that I’m no longer a factor in this conversation. “You can have both if you want to.”

“Really!” Fuck, his face is the sun rising over a grassy plain: open and bright and radiant.

“Really,” she says in a low voice (I don’t appreciate that tone. I don’t appreciate it at all).

Snow’s face vacillates between thrilled and thoughtful. He’s worrying his bottom lip again, and I just want to rub my thumb over—

“Since Baz—” My name on his lips startles me out of my reverie— “won’t be having his snacks, would it…well…” He’s blushing a little. “Would I be able to have his snacks too?”

“That’s so sweet!” The customer-pleasing smile melts into something genuine. “Of course you can. My husband always finishes my food too. You two are so cute.”

Snow’s mouth hangs open; he can’t seem to decide if he is horrified at the supposition or delighted at the prospect of more food. But he doesn't correct her. “Here you are. Your tea and your snacks.” She hands Snow a handful of packaged goodies.

“Th—thanks!”

I wait until the woman is a few rows away before unbuckling my seat belt, opening the overhead compartment, and shuffling around my bag for the prize I know is in there.

I pull a mint Aero bar from the depths of my carry on and settle back down. Airline snacks are suboptimal sustenance. Everyone knows that. Best to bring something in reserve. 

Snow’s eyes snap over at the sound of the wrapper tearing (I wonder if he likes them, if I were to offer him a piece, if he would say yes. Empathy established via cheap chocolate?)

I don’t offer. And he doesn’t ask.

Snow has already torn two of the pretzel packets open with his teeth and has the four cookies stacked to the side of his tray table.

“You will do anything for food, won’t you?”

He shrugs and starts to shovel the pretzels into his face. (Disgusting.)

“A shrug is not a sentence,” I mutter.

“Food was never a sure thing for me.” Snow’s wringing his hands together—an anxious tick he can’t seem to help.

“I don’t understand.” It's true. I don't. And I can't believe I've just admitted it. 

“Grew up in care, didn’t I?” This detail is personal and I am completely unprepared.

_Why is he telling me this?_

“Did you?” I ask.

Snow nods, still inhaling mini pretzels and chugging what must be very hot tea.

“When you don’t have a lot, you make sure that you eat when you can. And everything that they’ll give you.”

White light is filtering in through the tiny window and catching in his eyelashes—they are half closed now and his mouth half open (mouth breather). I can see the remnants of a memory all over his expression.

_I wonder if he’ll tell me. I wonder if I want him to._

“Was sitting with a friend once, when I’d just started uni,” he says, and we tip into...something else. “Not really a close friend, I guess. More one of those school-friends who you see every day for a term and then never talk to again.”

“I…” My voice feels like thin ice. “I know the type.” It’s true. I do. I do not cultivate fertile ground for meaningful friendships.

I’m the rolling stone who gathers no moss.

“We were out at this cheap pizza place. Didn’t have much money at uni. Surprised they let me in, to be honest.”

I know that polite conversation usually involves occasional grunts. Perhaps an ‘mmm’ or ‘ahhh’ to remind the person spilling their secrets that you are present.

I muster a nod. Snow doesn’t seem to mind.

“And my friend. He just…he left his crusts. And I looked at him and…this was first term, see...and I wasn’t as good at hiding this kinda thing…” It is in this moment that he seems to have realized that he’s telling _me,_ the “pretentious prat” in 33B, something with embarrassment potential. He almost falters.

“What weren’t you good at hiding?” I pull the sentence from somewhere deep in my gut. It’s a rhetorical phrase—I know where this is going—but he seems to need the encouragement. And I want to give it to him.

“Fuck, I dunno.” He rubs a hand through his curls. “Maybe that I was a kid with nothing. That I was trying to be a part of a world where I didn’t belong?”

 _How did we get here?_ The moment is too soft. I don’t know how to handle soft things. 

“A kid who always eat his fucking crusts. Cause you don’t know when you’re gonna eat next and it’s fucking stupid to waste that kinda food. Crusts especially.” He leans his head back and closes his eyes. “Carbs might not be super good for you, but they keep you full.”

“Indeed.” What a useless thing to say.

“Anyways,” he says, eyes still closed, head still back, neck still long and exposed and gorgeous. “I asked him if he was gonna wrap them up.” He takes a deep breath. “If he was gonna wrap up his fucking pizza crusts. And he just…laughed at me.”

Oh.

_I don’t like the idea of anyone laughing at you, Snow._

“And I tried not to cringe as I watched him scrape them into the bin.”

“I’m…” I can’t finish that sentence though. Because I don’t know what I am right now.

“I cried when I went home that day,” he whispers, more to himself than me. “But I learned too. That people don’t all come from the same place as me. And that…I needed to learn to fake it a little better.”

He chuckles a little and opens his eyes.

“And not to ask other people for their food. So, I guess...I’m trying to say...sorry about that?”

“It’s fine,” I croak.

He nods, leans back, and closes his eyes again.

But I’m not sure that it is. Fine.

“Speaking of which, do you think they’ll give me more of these?” He gestures to the now empty package of salty calories.

“Given your earlier performance with the flight attendant,” I say, “I think the likelihood of successful snack acquisition is quite high.”

“You know, that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.” _Is he blushing?_

I cough, trying to dislodge the sentiment stuck in my throat. “Don’t get used to it.”

**Simon**

Everything feels really hot all of a sudden.

_I don’t know why I told him all that._

It’s not as if he’s a particularly nice person.

I didn’t expect him to offer me comfort. I’m not even sure what comfort would sound like coming from someone like him.

I can feel the blood in my cheeks, the heat seeping into my cells. One giant fucking mood ring.

_Why the fuck did I say all that?_

No one tells you that your life growing up in the system is shit. There’s no manual outlining the things you don’t get to have. Each of those lessons is learned in process, a demonstration of my inadequacy. Lessons learned through absence—things that other people might have that are conspicuously unavailable for me.

Some of the realizations are big. I remember Gareth pulling into the parking lot of my dumpy flat in a brand new Lexus. It was the day we all came back after the holiday break.

“Is that your mom’s?” I’d asked.

“Naw, Christmas gift.” 

It wasn’t the extravagance of it that shook me. Not the custom sound system—we would make good use of that later, driving with the windows down and wailing at the top of our lungs. It wasn’t even the idea that anyone could ever give away something so big.

It was the nonchalance. The shrug of his shoulder. The way this was…totally normal for him.

In a way that it never would be for me.

Like pizza crusts.

Little cuts. Small pains. Secrets that I hold close to my heart, swaddled in shame and the certainty that I will never be enough.

_Why the fuck did I tell any of that to Baz?_


	6. Hour 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pH levels of pretension, wine guzzling, and the people we cannot touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the invaluable [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading and being a wonderful friend.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

Fucking airplane seats are torture devices. My back hurts. I think my left arse cheek lost feeling an hour ago. I shuffle on the firm cushion, trying to shift my weight in a way that eases the ache in my tailbone, but my bladder squishes in protest.

 _Fuck_. _I gotta pee. So bad._

Every time I wiggle, I see Baz’s eyes flicker towards me. It’s barely a glance—I doubt he even knows he’s doing it. But his attention is like a physical thing, almost like he’s taking those long fingers and brushing them against me. ( _I wonder what it would be like to slip one into my mouth and—)_

 _FUCK_.

I need to keep my thoughts PG if I’m gonna get through this flight.

That’s part of my current dilemma. I need the toilet something fierce, but if I wanna pee, I have to cross through dangerous terrain. Baz has his tray table down, a plastic wine glass filled with red liquid poised in the top right corner, and his long legs crossed in front of him. There are multiple obstacles in my way and the idea of spilling more liquid into Baz’s lap sends a spear of anxiety through my brain.

That and I’d have to be close to him. If he doesn’t move, that is. I’d have to try to try to squeeze between him, or to step over those legs that go on forever. The idea, the proximity, turns molten in my stomach.

How the fuck am I supposed to survive this? So many more hours are left next the most uptight bloke I’ve ever met. _He's torturing me on purpose, with those soft sighs and the single strand of hair falling onto his cheek_ —

“You’re wiggling Snow.” His lips barely move when he speaks. He doesn’t even look up from his e-reader.

“No, I’m not!” I squirm a little, pressing my legs together. _Okay, maybe I am._

Penny calls it my pee dance. Writhing back and forth on her couch, bobbing to and fro between desks. I can clench muscles most people don’t know they have. It is a skill; that’s what it is.

My bladder is full to bursting, a balloon in my belly, swelling and fucking painful. I should just go. I know I should. But the idea of trying to scoot out of this seat, to squeeze past Baz, feels impossible.

I saw that smarmy git down two glasses of wine. There’s only so long he can hold it in. And when he stands first, and relinquishes sweet sweet access to the aisle, that’s when I’ll make my escape. 

Because semantics are preferable to trying to scoot my arse past that beautiful man.

It’s inconvenient really. Unfair. Good looks should be spread out evenly, not dumped on top of a posh arsehole with a stiff upper lip and a bad attitude.

Those laser eyes snap to my knee and I realize that it’s bouncing, up and down at warp speeds.

_Fuck, how has he not moved once since we sat down? Where did his drinks go? Did the red wine just seep into his cells, restoring the pH of his pretension to appropriate levels?_

“Snow.” One syllable, taught and ready to snap.

“I’m not crossing your fucking line. I’m not talking to you. Do you have any other rules you want to add?”

Baz closes his eyes and breathes in through his nose. “If you need to use the washroom, will you please just get it over with?”

“I don’t—” I start to say, but a swift kick to the back of my seat sends me flailing. “What the fu—”

“Would you two shut up?”

I look at Baz and he shakes his head wordlessly. Together, we turn around in tandem to look at the seat behind us.

A strange creature is peering through the gap in the seats. Bulky headphones swallow its ears, blonde hair is mussed and sticking out at strange angles underneath the thick black band. And those eyes: green things, sharp and filled with something vicious.

It’s a fucking teenager.

“What did you say?” Baz says, and I find myself loving how sharp his words are. The way that he can lord above this little gremlin.

Gremlin, however, is unfazed. “I told you to shut it.”

Baz’s features rearrange into something cold. He looks ready to pluck out an eyeball.

Grumpy Karen-type from earlier is hiding a chuckle behind her open hand. _Way to go Karen. What great behaviour you're modelling._

“C’mon kid, you can’t talk to Baz like that,” I say, feeling strangely defensive. 

The monster screws his face up and says, in a high-pitched voice, “Don’t talk to Baz like that.”

“Are you…mocking me?” 

Those green eyes narrow and I can see something stubborn brewing behind them. “Are you mocking me?” he says, in that same sing-song-ey voice. I want to kill him. _I shouldn’t want to kill a child..._

“Your pathetic effort at humour is in bad taste,” Baz says.

Teenage gremlin gives my seat another swift kick, sending me lurching forwards. _I’m going to chuck this child out the emergency exit._ All I can see is red. 

“What are you gonna do about it?” he says. The look on Baz’s face is murderous.

“Christian, stop bothering these nice men and get back to your game,” Karen finally says, patting her son on the arm gently. “They’re going to try to keep it down. Don’t worry.” She gives us a look that dares us to contradict her.

Okay, I take it back. I want to throw them _both_ out of the emergency exit. The anger is cresting and I’m about to go off. When I get like this, there's no going back.

“Who the f—” I start to say, but then I feel something gently press against my knee.

It’s a simple thing. A hand and those long fingers. Touching me. Barely there. The pressure is light, tentative.

_He’s touching me._

For the first time in hours, I’m still as a fucking statue. I think feisty pre-teen is still launching word projectiles over the seat, but everything that isn’t the way his fingers feel on my knee is white noise. 

I drag my chin up; I want to look at him.

Delicate white lines, a deep blue shirt, sharp collarbone (I could trace my tongue into the way his skin dips just there), and then a world of grey.

Staring straight at me.

The urge to bolt flares inside of me just as I see something like panic flash across Baz’s face. He wrenches his hand away.

“If your plan is to assault a minor,” he mutters, looking determinedly down at his feet, “you’re thicker than you look.”

_How do I keep forgetting that he’s an aresehole?_

Vampire thrall. Jedi mind control. Fucking pheromones.

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the feelings that keep attaching themselves.

“Right. Stand up. I gotta take a piss.”

**Baz**

My voice has hidden somewhere. Behind my rabid heart, perhaps. I look down at the tray table. “Alright,” I manage to say. “I’ll just finish my wine first.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Snow says, and the monstrosity picks up the tiny plastic approximation of a wine glass, tosses the liquid into his mouth, and swallows.

He just _chugged my wine._

I am bereft. My words have abandoned ship. He’s ridiculous (his shoes are off) and a nightmare (who guzzles wine? Even if it was bad wine). I should be upset or distraught or…something else. But his neck has me in raptures. Watching him swallow is a production that I would pay per view.

Rough hands force my tray table up and then he’s pushing past me in his white socks. It all happens so fast, I don’t have time to appreciate the view (his arse was at perfect eye level).

I watch him stalk away and cringe as I think of the dirt and mess that those white socks will track back to our seat. Messy is not my type. Bumbling is not a characteristic I find endearing. Simon Snow should not be having this effect for me.

And yet.

I look down at my hands; they’re shaking.

The tips of my fingers still feel warm.


	7. Hour 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invisible thresholds, sniffing expeditions, and bergamot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the fantastic [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), (unparalleled in her loveliness) for beta reading.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

Are airplanes usually this claustrophobic? It feels like the hard drive of my brain is overheating. Cold sweat is dripping down my brow. Every time I swallow, I’m sure that Baz can hear each muscle in my throat clenching. I’m just so…hyper aware of everything my body is doing.

Which is why I noticed the smell.

Something woodsy wafted across the invisible line a while ago. Cedar, maybe. Like one of those outdoor candles. I probably could’ve let it go if that was all it was (cedar’s nice, but nothing to write home about), but that wasn’t quite all.

There was something lingering under the pine trees.

Something that smelled like…citrus. Or…maybe tea?

Economy seats aren’t exactly spacious and so it didn’t take long for me to realize the origin of the scent. It’s definitely not Karen behind me (pretty sure she’s the source of the cheap body-spray-covering-up-the-cat-pee smell I caught a whiff of earlier). It’s gotta be fit-as-fuck to my right.

He’s lounging now, his arse scooted down in the seat, his long legs stretched out into the aisle. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him.

I never thought I had a thing for smells. Never owned cologne and my shampoo is a three-in-one (body, face, and hair, in a single bottle!) All of my co-teachers in Korea had been appalled, rambling obsessively about the importance of skin care and collagen-whatever-the-fuck. But I could never really be bothered.

Until now.

Now, I find I’m quite bothered. 

I want to just…get a little closer. Baz probably wouldn’t notice if I leaned in just a little.

I try to engage stealth mode. Try to inch my head a little closer to his shoulder. It’s not that far, really. It’s right there

Perhaps if I lean in, I’ll be able to fill my nose with him. That definitely seems weird, but I just wanna get a quick whiff. So I can buy a candle or something. Yeah, I just wanna _understand_ the smell so that I can recognize it when I need to.

If I had more of that smell in my life, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

**Baz**

Snow is leaning in. Slowly. I see his head inch closer, crossing the invisible threshold I insisted upon and nudging into my space.

He’s trying to be discrete (bless him).

I’m about to turn and put my concerns into words when I hear a sniffing sound. His nose whistles as he takes a deep breath in.

_Is he…is he smelling me?_

Snow takes another un-subtle breath and I swear that I hear him sigh. It’s a soft sound. Contented.

How is one supposed to respond to a crazed seat mate breathing them in?

It’s bizarre (but I don’t think I want him to stop.)

Because, the way he’s sitting now, his body angled in my direction, his long neck stretched towards me, I can almost feel him. He so fucking close.

It’s like the spaces between us are charged, a chemical reaction generating heat. I can feel it, something warm in my cheeks.

Maybe I can let this one injustice stand. Can savour the way his breaths are brushing up against my neck.

Yes. That’s what I’ll do.

There's a gravity to Simon Snow, an invisible weight that is pulling me off kilter. I can’t be held accountable for the way my head is lazily drifting towards him. Our shoulders should be touching—there’s barely a hair’s breadth between us. I’m counting his breaths (I’m so weak), soothed into a false sense of security, when I see it.

Someone _else_ is determined to creep slowly into my space. Unbidden. Unrequested. Unacceptable. (My normal reactions to anyone not named Simon Snow.)

The back of the seat in front of me is slowly reclining into my lap—collapsing the space between my tray table and my knees.

“Snow, what is happening?” I mutter urgently.

He jolts up from his not-so-subtle sniffing expedition. “Uh, what?”

“Why is there a seat encroaching on my already limited space?” I say in hushed tones, in an effort to preserve what little dignity I have left.

Snow looks around and I watch as his thoughts catch up with the current chain of events. “Cause they’re leaning their seat back, mate,” he says, half confused, half grinning. “Don’t tell me you rich bitches in first don’t have to deal with people reclining?”

“I am not a rich bit—”

“Do you mind!!” Karen is hissing from behind. “Young ears!” she says, pointing to her monstrous child.

 _Of fuck off Karen._ “Oh, fu—”

“We’ll do that, thanks,” Simon cuts in swiftly before turning to me.

“Baz,” he says, his mouth centimeters from my ear. “This is what happens. People lean back their seats. They take off their shoes. They eat smelly food—”

“They what!”

The seat in front of me reclines further. The angle at which it is approaching is a crime against human decency. The screen in on the back of my seat is completely obstructed. Not that I was using it, but it is the principle of the thing. 

I see a balding head with a sparse amount of white hair inch into view. A preteen behind me and a geriatric in front. Brilliant.

_We have only been airborne for five hours. I cannot go another seven with this type of treatment. It’s inhumane. It’s—_

My internal catastrophizing is interrupted by the blaring sound of cheap speakers. I recoil, physically, from the noise. _Is the old man listening to...YouTube? Without a headset!_

I think Snow just snorted, but I can’t be sure over the grotesquely jaunty jingle of an ad. 

“Snow,” I hiss, trying to lean away from the incoming space invader and towards my seatmate. “There must be some rule against this kind of thing. It is a violation of my space and,” I lean in closer, trying to keep my voice lowered, “my eardrums. This should _not_ be allowed.” 

I’m very close to his ear, so close that I can count his freckles, can see the way his hair gleams copper. I can see his eyes crinkle as he smiles. “Is this making you uncomfortable?”

 _In so many ways_ , I think.

The idiot is enjoying this. Enjoying watching me suffer.

“No,” I snap. “I’m fine—”

But then the video's contents waft back towards us. 

“Trumpet tutorial,” I say, as the sound of brass instruments blast out through his phone’s speakers. “You could not make this stuff up.” 

“Look,” he says, turning his head to face me. (Close enough to headbutt.) (Close enough to kiss.) The proximity is giving me goosebumps. “You need to relax. You need to…” but his words leave him and a look of surprise and then jubilation explodes onto his face.

“Bergamot!” 


	8. Hour 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotional support peacocks, grey matter in protest, and a concert just for two. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the dynamic and delightful [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Baz**

The sound of Taylor Swift’s voice is mewling out of Snow’s cheap purple earbuds.

Under normal circumstances, this would be unacceptable. Second-hand music scrambles the words I’m trying to read, turns Chaucer to alphabet soup. Under normal circumstances, I would tear the earbuds from his ears and cut the cord into tiny little pieces.

But these are _not_ normal circumstances.

“How long has that creature been shrieking?” I moan, flopping back into my seat. 

Maybe if I squeeze my eyes shut, it will stop. Maybe I can will myself into another dimension. _If I can’t see it, then perhaps it won’t be able to hurt me._

“Bout twenty minutes.”

I didn’t expect Snow to answer—how the idiot hears me over the stringy voice in his ears and the screeching baby in the cabin is a mystery. A modern fucking miracle.

“I need it to stop.”

Snow turns to look at me, pulling a purple headphone from his ear and letting it dangle. “Not used to the noise?” I’m not sure if he’s trying to be cheeky or if he’s genuinely concerned.

“No,” I snap, grabbing the flimsy airline pillow and pressing it onto my face. “I’m not. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d rather allow the imminent air embolism to kill me in peace.”

Alright, he’s definitely smirking. “Drama queen,” he says, chuckling lightly at my distress, as the infant-possessed lets out a particularly loud shriek. 

“My response is appropriate to the situation at hand,” I say through gritted teeth. “There’s nothing dramatic about it.”

 _Fuck_. The is never ending. The bones of my cranium feel soft. Tenderized by tiny lungs. 

“Is this seriously not affecting you?” I groan.

Snow shrugs. He has a language all his own, shaped by shoulders, eyebrows, and grunts. “Used to it, I guess.”

“You’re used to screaming children violating your eardrums?” 

“Yup. Headphones changed my life.” Snow pulls the second earbud out and looks down at his lap. “Music blocked all the other stuff out, y’know?”

There’s that blush again and, suddenly, it’s all I can think about.

“Fuck, it’s stupid. You probably wouldn’t understand,” he says, still looking determinedly into his lap.

“No,” I say. The words are not planned. They don’t feel like a conscious choice. The urge to empathize is like gravity, pulling something vulnerable out of me. “I do actually. Understand.”

He looks up, and those simple blue eyes are earnest to bursting. “Oh?”

Fucking ‘oh.’

“I play the violin,” I say.

_When was the last time that I shared something personal with another person?_

It is telling, I think, that I can’t remember.

“It was a constant in my life when other things…” I pause, trying to find words for those months and years after she died, but they don’t come. “When other things were not,” I finish.

Snow is staring, mouth hanging open just a little, and he isn’t trying to hide it. Taking me apart with his eyes. I feel exposed. 

I want to say more. The story is desperate to come out.

When I couldn’t stop crying, Snow, I would play. When I missed her more than I thought I could bear, I would play. When I wanted to feel close to her, wanted to try and exist in a world where she hadn’t died and I hadn’t been left behind, I would play and imagine her watching me. A concert just for two.

_I’ll be back for your concerto._

She hadn’t, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend. 

My chest feels like it’s going to burst with all of the words that I want to say.

A shriek cuts through the moment and I feel some of the tension inside my ribcage deflate.

“Being a parent presents unique challenges,” I mutter, half to myself and half to the poor caregiver trying to soothe that creature. “That includes transport via airplane. And the public shaming that accompanies your upset offspring. I suppose a bit more empathy wouldn’t hurt.”

And that’s when the bastard decides to smile at me.

It should be on the list of restricted items: no aerosols, not liquids, no gels, no Simon Snow smiles. It is not a smile designed to placate or smooth; it is not weaponized friendly. Just a genuine burst of happiness, accentuated in two faint dimples. It’s like looking directly at the sun. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to un-see it; I don’t know if I ever want to.

“Hey,” Snow says, extending one purple headphone and jolting me out of my reverie. “Wanna share?”

“Excuse me?” My body is still standing in the afterglow of that fucking smile.

“You don’t seem like the kinda guy who would like my girl Tay Tay.” _What did he just call Taylor Swift?_ “But it’s gotta be better than this madness.”

He’s not wrong.

The idea sharing something (anything) with this golden boy is almost too much to bear. Sharing headphones is peak domesticity. It is cute and intimate and—

“Thank you, but I’ll take my chances with the child.”

I can’t. There is no future here. I cannot let my heart drift too close to this burning ball of fire and heat. Because, once he steps off this flight, I’ll never see him again.

Any closeness would be an exercise in self-flagellation, and those types of wounds would be slow to heal.

“Suit yourself,” Snow says, popping the earbuds back in, the ghost of that fucking smile still playing at the edges of his lips.

_I am so royally fucked._

**Simon**

Soft beats and warm notes hum into my ears and I can’t wipe the grin off my face. _Taylor Swift is an absolute goddess and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise._

Baz just opened up and he doesn't seem the type who spills his life story to strangers. I’ve only spent five hours with him and I’m more sure about this than anything else in my life. 

It’s easy...to be sure about him.

Maybe it’s how he holds himself (good breeding and all that) or the way his features tend to lock up right before something real is about to come out of his perfect mouth.

_I want more._

I let my eyes close and listen to t-swifty rock me back to half-sleep.

I want more from that perfect mouth—stories, but something else too. I want to push those perfect lips apart with my tongue.

I want _his_ tongue, want it to be more than sharp. I want all of the warmth and the soft lines, I want to ride the wave of pleasure dancing over my exposed flesh—

“SNOW!”

“Wha—what!”

My eyes snap open. _He can’t see, he didn’t hear, he—_

I can’t stop staring at his mouth. Fuck.

Fortunately, Baz is distracted. Those stormy eyes are wide open. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Baz opens his mouth, but something else answers first.

It’s the worst sound in the world.

**Baz**

Is this the Twilight Zone?

Have we crossed over the Bermuda Triangle?

It’s like the dying cry of a harpy, it’s a honking wail announcing the second coming of Christ, it is the scream of a hell mouth opening.

Snow’s eyes are starting to refocus—how he can sleep through this shit show of a flight is completely beyond me.

“I think…” he pauses, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “I think it’s a peacock?”

_**“Kyaaa!”** _

It’s a trumpet that hasn’t been tuned. It’s every violent urge I’ve had since walking through the sliding door of the airport, synthesized into one horrific wail. “Is it socially acceptable to seek out that monstrosity and wring its neck?”

Snow bursts into a half laugh, half snort and I feel something warm settle in my chest. Something completely separate from the white hot anger. 

“Oh, definitely not,” Snow says. “I saw it earlier. It’s an emotional support animal.”

“An emotional support what?”

_**“Kyaaa!”** _

Snow bites on his fist to stop a laugh. “It's...for people who have a hard time flying, or get panic attacks, or other stuff like that, I think.” 

“I hate how reasonable your explanation is,” I grumble.

“Hey,” he says, grinning at me as another loud Kyaah! echoes through the cabin. “At least it’s drowning out the baby?”

We both pause, ears straining for the sound of a fussy infant. 

“So, we’ve traded an infant under duress for a…” I can’t bring myself to say it, it’s so ridiculous.

“An emotional support peacock,” Snow says, laughing in earnest this time. “Yeah. I think that’s exactly what’s happened.”

I groan, but even as the peacock’s monstrous song reverberates inside the cabin, I can’t shake this feeling.

It’s new.

It’s alive.

It’s the most of anything I’ve felt in years. 

“Must be on a break,” Simon says, stretching his arms up above his head. “Cause those sounds can’t be supporting anyone.”

For once, Snow is right, but I obviously don’t tell him that. “I don’t care what they offer me, or how late getting home I’ll be,” I say. “I’m never flying coach again.”

“Privileged arsehole,” Simon says, but there’s no anger in it.

“Uncultured swine,” I reply, and a secret part of me hopes that that he knows I mean it affectionately.

“Is it bad that I wanted to punt a crying baby earlier?” Snow says.

I open my mouth to reply, just as the peacock rends the air with another howl. Snow’s body explodes into laughter. In spite of what must be one of the world’s most distracting situations (a fucking peacock in the economy cabin), all I can think about is the way joy washes through his body, the world’s most beautiful wave.


	9. Hour 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The international date line, wishes where the world is thin, and _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest chapter in the fic (short enough that I toyed with working the scene into another chapter). But, now that I've finished writing, I think this moment should stand alone. Please forgive me for the sparse word count today <3
> 
> Thank you, once again, to the heroic [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading and talking me off of every anxious ledge.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Baz**

I’ve never enjoyed the on-flight entertainment, but I do love to watch the flight map trace the airplane’s path across the continent.

If pressed, I will pretend that this fascination is about efficiency, about understanding where we are in time and space. That I like to know the mountains over which we are cruising or the arbitrary division of land the next patch of clouds is floating above.

But it’s never been about that.

“Did you know that we time travel when we go on these long flights?” It was a question my mother would ask me on every single one of our many trips across the world.

“I’m too old for this,” I’d insisted, the last time. She would repeat the same tired story whenever we approached the international date line, and I’d recently started insisting that I had outgrown her silliness.

(I hadn’t. I never would. The cruel irony of losing someone too soon is how desperately you yearn for the little things, the crumbs they left behind. I would give anything to have even this tiny morsel of her back. Would hang the moon if it meant I could have one more tall tale.)

“You’re never too old for magic, little puff.”

“Or embarrassing nicknames,” I’d muttered, but she’d gone on, unperturbed.

“The date line represents something special,” she insisted, and I can still see how fire that danced inside her, the prospect of a good story a smouldering glow behind her eyes. “It’s the only place on earth where you can travel through time.”

“Really?” I’d known it wasn’t real, but I loved the sound of her voice. I still do. Even as the details fade into memory.

Her eyes sparkled with the mystery of it, of this story that belonged to her and to me. “Truly. You see, the date line separates today from tomorrow,” she said. “It separates the past from the future.”

“Past and future…” No matter how often I’d heard these words, she always managed to reel me in. It rarely took more than a few sentences.

“These are the places,” she had said, leaning closer to the window. I’d matched her, desperate to see through her eyes, “where wishes are granted. Magic is thin in the rest of the world. But up here, maybe someone will hear us. As we jump between today and tomorrow. Past and future.”

Wishes and magic. My mother in two adjectives. 

“Make a wish,” she’d said, smoothing some of the hair off my forehead. “Make a wish, just in case.”

**Simon**

“We’re about to cross the date line,” Baz says. His words are so soft I can barely hear them.

“What’s that?”

“Technically?” he says, taking a deep breath and letting it slip slowly between his teeth. “It has to do with time zones and imaginary lines on a map. But…” he pauses, like the words are stuck in his throat.

“But what?”

He’s staring past me, out into the dark. “You should make a wish,” he whispers.

“A wish?”

“For a split second, we’re going to exist in the past and the future. We’re going to be in today and tomorrow. It’s…” He swallows and doesn't speak for a long time. “There might be a little bit of magic. Just for a moment.”

_Baz believes in magic?_

I want to ask, but the conversation is a delicate one; I can feel his resolve shaking, his ability to be vulnerable the consistency of spun sugar.

“Okay,” I say, turning my head away from his face, away from the sad lines, away from the ache in his words, and I look out into the strange world above the clouds.

A wish. What would I wish for?

 _Home_.

The word comes unbidden from some place I don’t allow my thoughts to go to very often.

I wish I knew what home felt like.

Yeah. That’s what I wish.


	10. Hour 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace treaties, a study in Snow, and turbulence (in every sense of the word).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the gift from the fic gods [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading and brit picking.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Baz**

Quiet has settled over the cabin. It feels like a tenuous thing, a peace treaty signed between warring factions of winged mammals, the steel lungs of an infant, and the rest of us stuck in this tin tube in the sky. The past seven hours have offered no opportunity for rest, and so this tiny slice of calm is making my hair stand on end.

The sun has set over the endless horizon and its absence has cast the world into a palette of greys and deep blues. 

A part of me is grateful for the nighttime rolling in; sleep would be a merciful reprieve from this madness—even if it is currently on pause. But another part of me misses the way that the sunlight filtered through Snow’s golden hair.

He’s sitting as still as I’ve seen him. The urge to fill the silence claws at the inside of my chest. The desire to know him. To crack the spine of his story and read every line.

A study in Snow.

There are questions waiting for the opportunity to form words. I just need to open my mouth and—

“So, uh,” Simon stumbles. “Since we’re gonna be here for a while longer yet, maybe…it’d be nice…to know you better.”

_You’re braver than me, Simon Snow._

“What would you like to know?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level, to strip my tones of their usual hostility.

Snow cracks his knuckles absently, mouth half open, struggling to form words. “S’hard, isn’t it?” he says finally. “When I was a kid, I could just bump into someone and start rambling off about smelly markers or my Pog collection. But now…” He pulls at his thumb and a satisfying crack responds to his ministrations. “Now, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Intimacy in adulthood is a rare beast,” I mumble, mostly to myself, but Snow is nodding.

“I bet you went to some private school. And had a zillion admirers.”

I snort. It is undignified in an honest sort of way. 

“Not a lot of friends though, I’d wager,” he continues.

“Why’s that?” I can't help but ask. 

“You’d tolerate the attention but struggle with the closeness.”

It’s so near the truth, I feel naked. 

“Am I that transparent?”

Simon shrugs. “Dunno. You are to me?”

My breath catches. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Me neither.” 

I peek at him, sneaking a glimpse in my periphery. He’s got his thighs pulled up onto the seat (as if trying to be the smallest possible version of himself) (fitting his life into small places, indeed). His curls are mangled, his shirt one giant mess of wrinkles. There is nothing smooth about Simon, nothing polished or poised. I can’t help but crave the disaster. 

“You’re right. About me. Private school, top grades. Path to university. You’ve got all the details right, Snow.”

He turns to look at me, plain blue refusing to let me go. I could drown in him. “I don’t know if I do,” he says, still looking at me.

“Appearances—”

“Can be deceiving,” Simon finishes.

“And first impressions—”

“Don’t always define who we are or what we can be,” Simon says, earnest as a fairytale hero. 

“You’re just saying that because your introduction nearly gave me third degree burns,” I say, trying to pretend he’s not finishing my sentences. Trying to pretend that the idea doesn’t strike at the very heart of me. 

“You're so dramatic,” he says. Still. Fucking. Looking at me. 

_Is this flirting?_

“You know that I’m…” Snow’s biting his bottom lip again. My god, the things I would do— “I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you?” 

“Yeah—” he starts to say, but the plane drops like a stone in the sky, sucking the air out of his lungs. 

Our moment of peace is over.

Pandemonium erupts in the cabin. A call bell pings, chatter babbles all around us. The plane dips again, and I feel my stomach leap up into my throat. 

The pilot’s voice filters through the speakers overhead.

“We’ve encountered an unexpected spot of turbulence. The next few minutes will be a bit of a bumpy ride. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts immediately, if you have not done so already.”

The overhead lights flicker on and off as the plane plummets downwards in a rush.

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” I gasp, trying to force out a laugh. “The gap in the madness could only last so long.”

Simon doesn’t reply.

“Snow?”

I look over.

His face is a sheet of pale and panic. Eyes scrunched shut, hands clawing at the flesh of his thighs, fear twisting his face into physical contortions of the emotion churning within him.

_If he was nervous to take off—_

“Snow,” I snap. I feel an urgency to act. To do something. To help smooth his desperate features back into an expression that makes sense.

_I want to make it better._

“Snow!” I shout again.

His breaths are coming out in panicked huffs—superficial things, dashing in and out of his chest.

The plane lurches to the left so suddenly it makes my head rush. The fear is clawing at my ankles, but there’s no time to be afraid. All I can think about is—

“Simon!”

Emergencies will tear bravery out of even the most cowardly people; I reach out and wrench Simon’s hands off his knees. They’re limp and clammy, but they’re between mine.

“Look at me,” I say, trying to sound like I’m not afraid.

I squeeze. Something real. Someone here. With him. Right now.

He squeezes back. Soft, but present.

“Simon, I need you to open your eyes.”

And he does. There are tears clinging to the edges and the panic is wild in his irises.

“Look. Focus on me.”

He’s listening. I feel him fold into me.

“You’re having a panic attack.”

He grunts, breaths still jerking in and out, vicious chest compressions.

“You’ve had them before.”

A sharp nod.

“Tell me what to do.”

“Talk.” The word comes out in a burst.

“To you?”

Simon growls his ascent. _Right. Of course, to him._

“I don’t know how to do that,” I start to say, as the plane sinks through the air. Someone is screaming. I can’t tell if the noise is from an infant or adult; the unrestrained fear is the same.

“Baz,” Simon says on a sharp exhale. It’s one word and it’s all I need.

“My mother.”

I’ve been startled into intimacy.

I don’t know why those are the first two words out of my mouth. Maybe it's because the veil between this world and the next one is thinning; this is the place where I feel closest to her and she’s never far from my thoughts. I’ve started now, and I don’t think I could stop if I wanted to. “Natasha Pitch. She was fearless. That straight-backed kind of fearless that makes people seem unbreakable. The whole fucking world loved her. How could you not?”

The words hurt.

“But I loved her more. She was fierce and you could see it in her details." My voice is made of washboard, but I carry on anyway. "I loved those details. I hold on to them. She would square her jaw if you dared get in her way; it made her look ready for a fight. Ready for anything. She had the best voice for stories. It was soft in the middle. Like a chocolate fondant. And...the way she was when you were with her,” I say, in a desperate fight with my vocal chords to keep my voice even. “When she looked at you, it felt like you were the only person in the world who mattered. Like you were the centre of her universe." I'm off the rails. "I loved her,” I finish, in a way that feels like it isn't enough. 

“Loved?” It’s a single word, a comment on the past tense (she’s always in past tense now). It’s a question. It’s territory that is off limits. 

Snow’s eyes are still shining, a sheen of tears ready to spill, the mania still jumping off the whites. But there’s something else there, now. Not pity. Something shared.

“She died.”

Now it’s two words, and I’m not sure if there’s a path forward.

A tight squeeze reminds me that I’m still holding onto his hands. Shaking. White knuckled. And squeezing, when he thinks I need it.

“There was a fire.” I’m telling the story and I have no idea where the words will take me. No planning, no plotting, nothing superficial or performative. Just words and hands and this. “In the office building. Where she’d been working.”

Why do I want to unload all of the emptiness inside of me? Do I think that he could hold all of it? All of me?

_Yes._

The answer comes unbidden in a way that pushes the rest of the story out. “I was supposed to be with her. We went everywhere together. Two Pitches, taking on the fucking world. She shouldn’t've had to face it…she shouldn’t have been alone.”

Simon’s breaths are starting to slow. His eyes are roving over my face, as if he’s memorizing my details, cataloguing features, making a copy of how he sees me.

“I miss her. Every day, I miss her.”

His hands are shaking, but the violence that animated his body is starting to still.

“Thank you,” Simon says. The words are ragged. So is he.

The aisles are clogged with legs and bags and mess, voices bounce off the walls, human sounds and animal sounds and panic. But none of that is penetrating the inches between my face and his.

“Are you okay?”

Simon shakes his head. “Not really.”

His hands have found their muscle memory and have locked my own in a death grip. I don’t mind.

“Can I…just…” He takes a slow breath in. “Just breathe with you?”

My mouth is a thin line as the plane gives another colossal shake. “Yes.”

Hands clasped, eyes locked, heart beating, we exist together, waiting until the world rights itself again.

It’s like we’re sharing something.

My mother would call it magic.

Above the clouds and in the stars.


	11. Hour 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorrys, sharp shoulder pillows, and the people we _can_ touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, once again, to the singular vision [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading this story.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

I know that the plane stopped its jerking leaps and bounds, that the rush of up and down finally settled into a smooth cruising altitude. The gas masks didn’t fall from the ceiling and we didn’t fall from the sky.

My lungs figured their shit out and my brain stopped its masochistic death spiral of panicked thoughts. Turbulence passes. In airplanes and in life.

The aftershocks were still settling, the cold sweat still dripping from my brow when Baz let my hands drop.

Letting go felt like something severed, like some connection was fizzling out.

_I didn't want him to...to let go._

I know that much for sure. I liked the way his hands felt in mine. And those fucking stormy eyes. It was like he wanted something from me.

And I wanted to give it to him.

Penny would say that I’m projecting. Pushing all of my feelings into another person, not really thinking it through or opening my mouth and just asking the question.

_Hey do you wanna get a drink when we land?_

That’s all it would take. 

He’d probably say no. He’s an arsehole (an impossibly posh, impossibly fucking gorgeous arsehole) and he’s out of my league in every way imaginable.

His shoes are worth more than everything I’m bringing back from Korea.

And yet. Would it really hurt to ask?

_Wanna come back to mine? We could watch Netflix and I could let your head rest in my lap and maybe you’d let me play with your hair._

I still haven’t touched it. _I want to. Touch it. Feel it between my fingers._

I let my head settle against the headrest and try to pretend that it’s comfortable. I feel wrung out. Beyond tired. 

“I hate airports,” I murmur. I’m exhausted and it’s catching up. 

He looks at me, smiling, and I realize that it’s the first time.

He’s gorgeous when he smiles. I want to keep my eyes open, if only for this.

“Why is that, Snow?”

“You called me Simon earlier,” I say, yawning.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you did. When you were being all—” I blush, thinking about his hands, how I’d squeezed them tight enough to give him bruises. How he hadn’t complained. Had just held on to me as I fell apart. “You did,” I rasp, words tripping over feelings.

“I have no idea what you’re—”

“I liked it.”

_I did. I really did._

That single eyebrow is gonna be the death of me.

“I liked it…you know…a normal amount. Like any normal person would.”

“Of course,” he says, but that grin is still holding and it makes my breath catch. “Simon.”

_Fuck, I’d never stop loving the way that sounds. My name in his posh vowels._

“I hate airports too,” he says.

“Why?”

One deep breath,

“It was the last place I saw her. Before she died.”

A thousand questions bloom behind my drooping eyes, but his face is a fortress; he’s said all he’s going to.

“I'm sorry. I really am. But…” I pause, trying not to mess up the words. Cause it feels like these ones might matter. “Sorrys are useless. Sorrys don’t bring people back or make things different.”

“They don’t.” The lights are dim in the cabin. We’re so close. Together. To something. 

“I’ve always been…bouncing. From place to place. Not just as a grown up or whatever.” I pause, hoping the ghosts in my chest will stop rattling around and manage to wheeze out some pithy explanation for why I am the way I am. “Always have. A dozen different schools, even more homes, and workers would always say those two stupid words. ‘I’m sorry.’”

There’s inches between us. Even with the extra leg room, the seats in economy are exactly that: he’s so close that, when he turns his head, I can see blues and greens hiding in the grey of his irises. 

“Some of ‘em actually were. Actually sorry, I mean. Sorry that they had to work within a shitty system. And some weren’t. Too tired to keep caring. But it didn’t matter. Cause…” I close my eyes. I can’t look at him. Not right now. He’s too damn close.

“Sorry didn’t make the group homes less shitty. Sorry didn’t make being the new kid every other year a treat. Sorrys...they didn’t change anything,” I whisper. 

“I know exactly what you mean,” he says. The words are strained and soft. Which may be why I keep talking. I dunno. At this point, I’m a loose thread.

“I’ve been outta care since I was 18 and I still…I still don’t have a home.”

“No home?”

I don’t know if it’s a question that requires an answer. I keep my eyes squeezed shut. I’m braver with my eyes closed.

“I mean, I’ve got a friend who I’m gonna share a flat with. Shep. He’s a good guy. And London is a place I lived. That’s all true. But…” The lump in my throat is suddenly insurmountable.

“But what?” he asks.

“My life is one big mess of…” I scrape around my skull for the right words and land on a fucking airport metaphor, “of departures and arrivals. And I don’t have anyone to hold me steady. No one to notice when I’m gone. Or to pick me up when I land.”

Maybe it’s the panic that’s rubbed me raw, but my feelings are bleeding all over the place and I can’t seem to cover them up.

“Just. No one. No...” I let a heavy sigh finish my sentence. 

My chin is tilted up against the headrest, my teeth grinding while I wait. Wait for something. A word. A Sound. A monosyllable will do.

But the silence stretches. On and on. And I’m too afraid to open my eyes and face the mess I’ve made—from coffee to feelings—all over Baz.

Eventually, I feel sleep tugging me under.

**Baz**

Maybe it is the sheer exhaustion induced by eight hours of forced proximity. Maybe it’s the way that he approaches everything: bumbling in head first, words stumbling over more awkward words. Unrestrained. Gorgeous.

I felt his pain mingling with mine.

We’re different.

So different.

But somehow, we match.

“Simon,” I start, not sure even as I begin to speak what words will come next. The lump doesn’t answer me.

I let my eyes rove over him, tracing the bulky shoulders, the stubborn jaw, a tag peeking out through the neck of his shirt. The rise and fall of his chest is even and the tension that I didn’t notice him carrying has drained.

“I cannot believe you had the audacity to fall asleep on me,” I whisper when I’m certain that he’s long gone from the waking world. “What if I was on the verge of an emotional confession or a declaration of love?”

Simon lets out a colossal snort and, for a moment, panic shoots through my body. _If that imbecile heard me, I’m going to set myself on fire. Self immolation on a 747. Fatality, one first-time lover, hopelessly rambling sonnets at his clueless seatmate._

But no. Simon stays sound asleep. He has, however, jostled himself out of stasis. I watch it happen in slow motion, as those lovely golden curls start to fall in my direction. 

I am in the plot of a romantic comedy.

Simon’s head hits my shoulder and I feel what little oxygen I’ve managed to inhale over the last few minutes leave my body.

Whatever dignified thoughts I may have had have been reduced to _Fuck fuck fuck._

The urge to flee is strong, but the desire to touch him—to just let my fingers trace circles in his thick golden hair—is stronger. In the end, I do neither. I let the absolute disaster make a pillow of my sharp shoulders and savour the smell of him: smoky cinnamon and, my god, I hope that the scent stays. Burrows into my clothing and never fades.

I’ve only got four more hours with this ridiculous man. I’m going to savour every moment.

I lift my hand and brush a stray curl off his forehead.


	12. Hour 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The delights of a day with nothing to do, the highs and lows of fine, and food that we _can_ share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, to the unflappable [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for beta reading this weird little story.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

I dream of pine trees and earl grey tea. Of long fingers stroking my brow. 

There’s white light filtering through the curtains and no urgency. The delights of a day when you know that there's nothing to do.

I’m standing in the middle of the room, my toes curling into the hardwood. I don’t see him. Not at first. But I know he’s there. Can feel the omnipotent dream presence of someone tall, dark, and…

I look over at the bed behind me

...fit as _fuck_.

Long legs are draping haphazardly over the edge of the bed, half covered by the down comforter. I can see just enough. The late morning light is rolling across his skin, crawling over his shoulder blades, touching the backs of his knees.

There’s dark hair spilling across his face, all messy like, and I want to push it back. (It’s mussed with sleep.) (I want to muss it with something else.) 

“Baz,” I say, but soft. I know that this is our day off in that impossible way you just know things in your dreams. This is an impasse between bookended days of stress and the mess of the outside world. Today is just for us. 

I turn back to the bed and realize I don’t have any clothes on (I wonder when I got comfortable enough to sleep naked) (I wonder if there's someone I could feel that close to). 

I cross the room (the floor is so cold), lean down, and press a kiss to his temple. My hand slips under the blankets. I don’t think about it; I just do it. “Baz,” I say again, my fingers tracing gentle lines into his arms. I roll the duvet off his shoulders.

“Hmm.” It’s barely a mumble; it’s all the encouragement I need.

I climb onto the bed, knees splayed on either side of his gorgeous back and press my lips to his exposed skin. 

“Simon,” he hums, but there’s something in the tenor of his voice. 

I let my teeth scrape the side of his neck, and savour the whimper that’s half muffled by the pillow. 

“If you don’t stop,” he groans, “I won’t be held accountable for my action—” 

I nip the base of his neck and hear him moan in earnest this time—something hot and dire and directed at me. 

It happens in an instant, in that magical way that only makes sense in dreams. He’s turning over underneath me, so fast it’s practically inhuman. Those long fingers wrap around my wrists and pull me hard onto the mattress. 

Down crinkles and soft sheets swallow everything in the warmth of slept-in Egyptian cotton. 

Two arms wrap around me. Baz, pulling me tight, flush against his bare chest. Our skin presses together (so warm), his legs tangle in mine (intimate in a way so casual it aches). He’s hot. He’s close. 

It’s safe. 

“But I want—”

“I know what you want,” Baz practically growls. Those tones are dangerous and filled with unspoken promises. I feel his lips pressing against the back of my neck. “Later, you insatiable lump. It’s 6:30.”

“But—”

“You’re going to be my little spoon until you find the energy to get up and make me my coffee. And then,” his voice dips on these last two words, “you’re going to learn what I taste like.” 

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my life. 

“Snow.” 

I hear my name.

“Snow!”

_I thought we were sleeping now. Until coffee._

“Simon!”

My eyes flash open. 

The first thing I notice is the kink in my neck; it could drive the plot of a cheesy porno.

My head’s fallen at an odd angle, resting on something firm and a bit...pointy. _I want to go back to the dream._ I tilt my head, eyes filled with sleep, and look at my make-shift pillow. 

It’s a shoulder. 

Connected to a person. 

Connected to Baz! 

Grey eyes pin me in place.

_I fell asleep on Baz’s shoulder_

_what if I drooled on his shirt_

_what if I snored in my sleep?_

_Oh Christ, he’s gonna kill me..._

“I have bad news,” he says, and his voice is what finally breaks the spell and sends me scrambling away. I yank my body back towards the window and press into the plastic walls. 

Emotion jumps across his face, a flash of fire in the pan—something sad and confused. Maybe throwing myself away from him wasn’t the most tactful way to handle this situation...

_I wanna know how Baz tastes. Jesus Christ._

Why is he just looking at me? 

_I think I might have a problem in my pants._

“B-bad news?” I stammer, still mortified. How did I let this happen? I cross my legs, trying to ignore the evidence of how much my body enjoyed that dream.

_Dark hair splashed across his cheekbones. The slope of his back as I traced my lips down his spine. Just him and me, skin on skin, melting into each other..._

_Fuck_. I need to think about something else. Furniture. Or algebra. Or water fowl. Something. 

“You slept through dinner.”

That’s a thought that will cool my arousal in an instant. 

I must be projecting my massive internal panic, because the hard lines of Baz’s face smooth into something sympathetic. 

“I assumed this would be distressing to you. The way that you inhaled those tiny snack packets betrayed your deepest motivations.”

He’s all fancy words when all I can think about is the growling monster that is my empty stomach. 

“So, I saved you the portions of mine that I found particularly unpalatable.” 

Now these are words I can focus on. My attention snaps to the tray he has laid in front of him. 

“You haven’t eaten any of this,” I say, unsure if I want to push the argument. Yes, Baz needs sustenance. But that roll is looking at me in a very particular way and I need to make it mine...

“Like I said,” he drawls (oh god that drawl). In that singular moment, I’m desperate to get him back to a place where I can sit on top of him, hold him down, and coax sounds out of him that aren’t so pretentious. Where I can have him, right where I want him… “I saved you the items I deemed unsuitable for human consumption.” 

I think I might be craving _him_ almost as much as I’m craving that scrumptious packet of butter on the edge of his plate.

“All of it!” I whimper, half horrified (who can turn down this much food?), half delighted (because that means it’s all mine).

“Correct.”

“Fine!” I’ve lost the ability to argue. I seize the tray and tuck in.

**Baz**

_Fine._ It’s such a bland word, a mediocre adjective for mediocre people. (For me.)

I’ve been insisting that I’m _fine_ for so long, I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be anything else. 

Moving swiftly from one goal to the next, before anything other than _fine_ could catch up. Riding the pressure that I mustn't let her down. I must follow in her footsteps, must carry the legacy of what it means to be a Pitch. Decimating all expectations, pursuing the excellence that everyone (that she would have) expected. Rushing from place to fucking place, airport to fucking airport without anything to tether me. I am a buoy without an anchor, floating around in an ocean of _fine._

As the weight of his head settled onto my shoulder, the pressure in my chest started to build. When he nuzzled into the crook of my neck and I caught the smell of his cheap shampoo and a smokey musk that must be uniquely him, I nearly burst with whatever not-fine thing was going on inside of me. A crescendo of fucking feelings that I am not equipped to process. To feel the swell of something bigger than fine, something more intense than fine, something more real than the fine I have been riding for so many years...

Even as he shreds a crusty roll with his incisors, I can’t stop the feeling that the chambers of my heart are about to burst. 

Whatever this is, it’s not _fine._


	13. Hour 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inflexible airline policies, bathroom dances, and the lines that we _can_ cross (every time. Without looking back).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no universe in which this fic exists without you [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), and so thank you, again, so much.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

Joke’s on Baz and his snooty fucking tastebuds, cause his leftovers were delicious (a little chewy. A little dry. A lot like sandpaper. But still, delicious). All those jokes that people make about airplane food are in bad taste…

Or good taste…?

Whatever.

Food has this magical rejuvenating quality. Perks me right up. “You’re a potted plant who needs to be regularly watered,” Penny had said. 

I had vehemently disagreed. “Fuck that. If I’m a flower—”

“—I never said you were a flower—”

“—then food’s the fucking sun!” 

With a full stomach, I barely feel the cramp in my neck or the way my lower back has aged 84 years. 

My stomach has finally settled. And my nerves with it. 

_He can’t disappear once we land._

It’s a thought, unbidden, but as it crashes into me, I know that my subconscious is onto something. The idea of him slipping into the crowd once we exit the plane, of his dark silhouette fading into the anonymity of a hundred other shifting strangers...I don’t think I can take it. 

I think I want...more. 

But that feels like a line, like the line dividing my seat from his. A line I’m not sure I can cross. 

“You can’t go up there!” 

The once-friendly voice of a flight attendant snaps me to attention, shifting from sweet to stern. She’s pulled herself up to her full height, the lines of her crisp baby blue uniform commanding authority in a way they hadn’t seemed to before. An older woman stands beneath her downturned nose. Her back is curved into a painful looking slouch, her arms folded across her chest, tight as can be, like she’s using them to hold herself together. 

Fucking rules. Fucking places people can’t go. Lines we can’t cross, my arse. 

“But, I…” Her cheeks are flushed and her voice is dipping, trying to hide from the prying eyes that have started to notice. “I just want to use the restroom.” 

“I’m sorry, but this area is restricted to business and first class passengers only. Please use the facilities at the back of the plane.” 

A spasm of discomfort churns in my guts; it feels like bad food and... _shame._

I shouldn’t be hearing this conversation. It wasn’t meant for the fair-weather interests of countless strangers trapped in a tin can. Her distress should not be the on-flight entertainment.

“I tried,” the woman says, still speaking in hushed tones, everything about her saturated in this very public embarrassment. “But there are lines for all four washrooms and…” I can hear the tears creeping into her words. “I can’t wait. I just can’t. Please.” 

The sheen of customer service and vigilant manners cracks ( _there’s no way that she lets an old lady have an accident in the middle of the aisle. There’s no way_ ), but only for a moment and not deeply enough. 

“I’m sorry. It is an airline policy that is inflexible. Now please,” the flight attendant reaches down and takes the woman’s hand gently in her own, prying her fingers from the chorded rope separating two different worlds. 

“But—” 

“You need to go to the back of the plane.” The woman’s hand falls limp. I can see her lip starting to wobble. 

_Oh fuck this._

**Baz**

The display is a harsh reminder of arbitrary injustice, when infinitesimal actions add up to a world that is colossally unfair. I am so fixated on this blatant demonstration of class politics that I barely notice Simon getting to his feet. 

“What are you going to—” 

He’s past me in an instant, muscling his way into the aisle.

A thousand scenarios play out in my mind. 

_Simon, shouting about the grotesque amount of privilege baked into this singular rejection of basic human decency. The words stumbling out of him like a brick through a window. No finesse. All bluster._

_or_

_Simon, tearing the curtain asunder with his fists and setting the remnants on fire._

_Simon_ —

isn’t doing any of that. Instead, he’s taking the hands of the old woman in his. 

“Hey, I’m Simon. What’s your name?” 

“Um.” She looks startled by his sudden intrusion, but grateful too. If only for the way the attention has shifted from her to him. 

I’m staring, just like the rest of them. _Can he feel all the eyes tattooing his skin with their judgement?_

“Jinee,” she says. Her voice stills sounds like it’s crumbling. 

“Jinee, let’s you and me walk to the back of the plane, yeah?”

_What on earth is he playing at?_

“When I was a kid,” he’s saying as they walk together down the aisle. “I used to do this pee dance. Where I’d wiggle and clench just the right way. And it would help.” 

_What a ridiculous, insane, dramatic...proper hero, Simon Snow._

“Young man,” she says, her voice fading as they walk away from our seats. “Are you suggesting we dance together?”

I can hear Simon’s laugh bubble up over the constant roar of the turbines churning jet fuel into speed. “Hey! You’ll see!” The words are joy spilled over. “It works. You just gotta follow my lead.”

“I don’t know if my husband is going to like this.”

“Well, he should’ve asked you first, shouldn’t he?” Cheeky fuck.

I’m sitting in an arthritis-inducing torture device, with my knees pressed up against my own tray table, and the hovering ache of hunger pains rippling through me when I realize it.

I’d cross every line for him. 

And I wouldn’t look back.


	14. Hour 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winged predators of the sky, the privilege of the window seat, and the hands that we _can_ hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you does not really do justice to how the exquisite [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine) is. Thank you for reading this in draft form and still managing to love it.  
> Will update every day/other day <3

**Simon**

“Attention passengers. We will begin our descent into Heathrow shortly. Please remain seated for the duration of the flight. Ensure that your tray table is stowed and your seat returned to the upright position. Local time is 6:40 am, and it’s a balmy five degrees. We hope you’ve had a pleasant flight.”

_How did I forget about landing this fucking plane?_

The words take my neurons into their hands and strum. Panic rings in my ears. 

_Will I ever be able to keep my feelings from just...going off?_

My body’s reaction is visceral. A cold sweat starts to pool at my temples, timed to react to any external flying-related stimuli.

I thought that this would be easier. That once I knew that the fear was coming, I‘d be able to fight back against the the fucking claustrophobic reminder that we’re in a metal tube in the sky, one malfunction away from _—_

_ending in flames. Fuck everything is going to end in flames._

I can’t. Fucking. Breathe.

_I need to get out. I can’t get out. I can’t. I—_

“Don’t worry, Snow.” Baz’s voice cuts through the haze. In anger or in earnest, Baz’s words are razor sharp. “It will be another 45 minutes before we are properly landing. These larger planes take forever to set their wheels back on the tarmac.”

_Was Baz just...nice to me? Out loud?_

The tenor of his voice is different and the way he’s looking at me: it’s not affection, but it’s also not outright hostility. Considering that we began this trip with me spilling squash juice all over his fancy trousers, I count this particular look a personal victory.

I grit my teeth and try to push the panic down.

_Breathing. I’m not gonna die. I’m not—_

“Something quite spectacular is happening, and you are at risk of missing it,” Baz says, pulling me back towards him, those posh vowels hooking my attention. 

_He’s trying to distract me, the thoughtful fuck._

“Don’t waste the privilege of the window seat.” 

I want to remind him that I practically begged him to switch seats with me and that the stubborn git refused. But panic still has a stranglehold on my vocal cords and this doesn’t feel like the moment for a snarky reply.

Because his voice is soft and I want to lean into it. 

“Take this moment and soak in one of the most beautiful sunrises you will ever see.” Baz is closer, so much closer now, the long lines of his body fitting snugly into my space. 

The dream of what it felt like, pulled tight against his chest, those same arms holding me close, refusing to let me go…

“It’s nothing more or less than a beautiful view.” His words reverberate in my chest and I want to catch this feeling in a bottle. 

Bursts of yellow are peeking into pale blue, the shimmering light cresting the horizon, ready to spill over into white foam. 

Baz should be exhausted. After twelve hours of flight time, his body should be cramped and recycled. I haven’t seen the bugger sleep. If he’s feeling the effects, though, his face doesn’t betray his secret. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asks, his chin hovering above my shoulder, his cheek settling next to mine. I answer honestly. 

I can see the sunlight catching in his eyelashes. 

“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

**Baz**

I’m running out of time. Twelve hours seemed insurmountable at the beginning of this journey around the world. But now, as I feel the aircraft preparing for landing, I find I am not ready. I’m desperate for just a little more time.

_They will light a match inside your heart._

She was right about everything else. It should come as no surprise that she was also right about this. 

The landing gear drops beneath us and I feel the plane shake with the impact—legs unfurling beneath this winged predator of the sky. Simon flinches, squeezing his eyes closed and bracing for his own personal worst case scenario. 

_He’s so afraid._

We’re flying over buildings now and any approximation of space and height, of normal depth perception at all, is lost in our descent. The wingtips tilt, pointing down at a world that feels so close, I’m sure that we’re going to clip the closest skyscraper. We never do, but if my anxiety is spiking—

Simon’s fingers are clinging—white knuckled and desperate. He’s clearly taking up an armrest meant for two, but at this point it hardly matters.

Because something has slipped into place. A decision forged in the hopes that my pitiful attempt at comfort and some menial form of reciprocity (for the time we’ve spent together) (for the intimacy that he has pulled from places I’d forgotten existed) will not have gone unnoticed.

_You’re so alive, Simon Snow._

I reach out. I wrap one hand around his. I give him something tactile, and then a squeeze, to let him know that he’s not alone. That he will be alright. 

It’s not ridiculous. 

It’s the only thing that makes sense. 

I feel the wheels wheezing against solid ground, bumping up and down, rubber connecting with the asphalt of London.

He squeezes my hand so hard, I think the circulation in my fingers flags. 

_Home_.

Simon’s eyes flutter open and he looks over at me.

_I can’t let him go._

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

He’s so much more than a match. He’s the fucking sun. And I’m crashing into him. 


	15. Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One final kyah, a carnival of oddities, and the arms of someone who needs me and wants me and will never let me go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the final chapter; this scene was supposed to close the fic. However, I may or may not have written an epilogue (I definitely wrote an epilogue). I just didn't feel quite done as this chapter came to a close, and so we have just one more coming after this <3
> 
> Thank you to the best beta around [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine), for sticking with me for this whole ridiculous flight.  
> 

**Baz**

It takes a thousand years to disembark. Bodies idle in the open spaces, as if rushing the aisle will somehow make the line move faster. 

It won’t. 

The peacock lets out one final kyah! (whether in terror of the outside world or jubilation for a human emotionally supported, I’ll never know.) (I don’t speak peacock).

A young father is pressing a baby into his chest, bouncing back and forth on his heels. The skin around his eyes is stretched like a limp hair elastic, used one too many times. 

Snow is particularly agitated, buzzing in his seat, standing abruptly, and then sitting back down in a huff when the line still has still not moved. 

Of all the passengers who braved these twelve trying hours, I have to acknowledge fourteen-year-old monstrosity for his approach. He passed the time most effectively, with barely a wrinkle in his (admittedly sloppy) clothing, unperturbed by the flying rodents and baby megaphones, completely engrossed in a handheld world. 

“Line’s moving,” Snow says, disrupting my musings (disrupting my everything). 

_What a difference twelve hours can make._

I need to find a way to take this feeling and shape it into words. 

The herculean specimen reaches up, pulling my bag out of the overhead compartment and setting it in the aisle beside me. We begin to disembark together.

I can’t stop thinking about the tiny moments that could mean nothing, but that I want to mean everything. A carnival of oddities that may be innocuous in isolation, but cumulatively add up to….

_please let it be something._

**Simon**

It’s amazing how, no matter where you are in the world, airports manage to look exactly the same—the grey colour palette a slap in the face, an utter rejection of the thousands of kilometers travelled. 

“I fucking hate airports,” Baz mutters beside me, reflecting my mood.

_He’s still here._

I keep expecting him to turn, to make a hard right, disappear into a bathroom or decide to randomly peruse a shop, to just...leave. Leave me, without a reasonable excuse to follow. He’s had a half dozen chances already. 

And yet.

The arsehole is still trailing a half step behind me, and with every minute that passes, that continues to have Baz in it, I feel something like hope. 

He held my hand. He touched my knee, he let me sleep on his shoulder, he told me about his mum when I was falling apart. He was there. He showed up. He…

_He’s about to leave me behind and I’m just not ready._

“Did you check a bag?” 

“Uh…” I don’t know how to talk right now. “Yeah.”

“Amateur mistake, Snow. Do not give an airline the ability to disappoint you,” he says, his face closely resembling a grin. “Because they will. At every opportunity.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I have to move my entire life for two years. Make sure it all fits in my carry on.”

Baz rolls his eyes. It’s a good look. ( _Everything’s a good look on Baz.)_

Fuck. We’ve reached the baggage carousel. Fuck fuck _fuck_.

“Did _you_ check any bags?”

He shakes his head. The long waves of his dark hair are completely loose now, falling around his face in a way that is almost messy. 

_I’ll probably never see Baz this dishevelled again._

“No,” he answers. “No checked bags.”

_I’ll probably never see him again at all._

Baz stops walking. “Well then. Snow—” 

“Simon,” I interrupt. “It’s gotta be Simon. To you.” Fuck, I feel like I’m choking on whatever this feeling is. 

“Simon,” he says softly.

I know there are bodies moving around us, and air circulating, and pages echoing overhead. But I can’t hear it, can’t see it or process it. Everything that is not Baz is grey. Is background noise. Is completely fucking irrelevant. 

Just like the first time I saw him.

“Simon,” he says again, and that look that I thought I saw, that I hoped I hadn’t imagined, is back on his face. “I—”

The sound of an alarm blares to life, blast after honking blast, announcing the arrival of our bags. The twisting body of the baggage carousel has started to move. 

“That’s your cue,” Baz says, deflating. 

_I don’t...I can’t…_

I’ve never been much of a talker. Thoughts move too fast, my brain a wiggly jelly mold on a good day.

But actions? 

_I want this._

Those I can manage. 

_I want this so much._

I close my eyes and launch myself at him. Something like magic is pulling and I can’t stop it. It’s a hook in my stomach and I just...I want to hold him.

So I do. 

I throw my arms around his neck and feel my body crash into his chest. 

Either all of those little details added up to something bigger than two blokes forced together in a cramped cabin, or they didn’t (at which point, he probably decks me).

This is all or nothing. No point holding back. And so I let myself hold him (the divot between his neck and shoulder is a perfect fit) (the smell of cedar and bergamot is all around me). It’s safe. It’s...

...home. As the wheels touched down on the runway, his hand in mine felt like coming home. It’s something I’ve never had before. 

It’s something I wished for.

Something I want more than anything. 

And so I hold on.

And wait for him to hug me back.

  
  


My arms are shaking. My whole body is a mess of nervous energy and emotions just frail enough to shatter on impact. 

“Si-Simon,” he whispers into my hair. And I feel his arms pull me close.

He’s holding me like he needs me. Like he wants me. Like he’ll never let me go.


	16. Hour 8772

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suspicious orangutans, carefully crafted mistuque, and coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you one final time to the absolutely fantastic [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine) for beta reading this fic from start to finish.  
> 

**Simon**

Airports will always seem strange: they’re these sites of serious emotion but they’re sterile too. Efficient. Recycled.

After a week in an entirely tropical climate, the chilly London air is a physical thing. I nod at the flight attendant as I step into the sky bridge, wheeling a smart economical carry on behind me. A gift from my smart economical boyfriend. 

My freckles are dark against my tanned skin, rippling promptly into goosebumps—London, welcoming me home. 

_Come with me to Indonesia,_ she’d said. _We can go see the orangutans,_ she’d said. 

Winter vacation is one of the only times Korean students are given a reprieve from the backbreaking pressures of their education system. This made December one of the few windows where I could actually visit Penny.

Almost a year ago to the day, there was a secret part of me that thought we would lose touch, that that ineffable thing tying me to her would loosen and come undone. But Penny was true to her word. The first day I met her, she insisted we'd be great friends.

We still are. 

The fucking orangutans, however, were not as welcoming. They just kept _looking_ at me, all suspicious like. There was judgement in those beady little eyes and their giant orange bodies bristled copper as they stared and stared. Into my fucking soul.

 _They knew things_. 

It was unsettling is what it was. Penny said I was being ridiculous, but I’m excellent at sussing out potential threats.

I wish I could say the rest of the trip went smoothly. And if you don’t count getting hopelessly lost on public transit, it was fine. Or crashing a scooter. Or getting food poisoning with three days left. I couldn’t eat for _days._ Literal. Days. 

I’ve never been so miserable in my life. My body has never rejected food before.

It was a fucking travesty.

After our misadventures in Borneo, Penny’d wanted me to stay at hers for Christmas proper. To cram into her tiny little bachelor flat like we had so many times before. To watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special and order cheap pizza and fight over whether or not to let the pizza place leave the corn on. Korean pizza is its own unique thing, and often showed up piping hot and covered in sweet pickles, or yams, or hot sauce. And corn. There was always corn. 

The idea was tempting. Curling up with my best friend, eating until we threw up, and then wandering to a 24-hour convenience store for soju and snacks all sounded kinda perfect. 

The trouble was, I had some premium motivation to come back to London for Christmas. I wanted, more than anything, to spend the holidays with my fit as fuck boyfriend. 

I wanted to come…home.

The severe grey lines unfold in front of me, herding passengers into the terminal proper. I feel something anxious deep in my gut ( _he said he’d be here_ ). Something manic and secret and ugly.

_Because what if...what he wasn’t?_

**Baz**

Airports are vile receptacles of messy tears and public displays of sentiment.

They are the slush fund for broken hearts. A perilous trap for words and showy romantic gestures that should be left poetically unsaid.

Except today. 

I refresh the arrivals information on my mobile for the hundredth time. 

ICN to LHR, Korean Air 907. Slated to arrive at 5:25pm. 

On time. 

How absolutely typical of any and all British modes of transit. It is already 5:45. The plane should be here by now. It should have landed. I begin mentally drafting a formal complaint to the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Eviscerating the accuracy of Heathrow’s travel time estimates and lamenting the woeful impact these inaccuracies have on the mental health of family members anxious to greet their loved ones.

_My loved one. Specifically._

He should be here. 

The need to see him is evidenced on the inside of my cheek, where I’ve chewed it raw to bleeding—a physical demonstration of the anxiety coiling inside me.

There’s movement at the gate. People are beginning to emerge from between the large frosted windows separating the secure area from the public.

_Where the fuck is Simon?_

The last time we were here was almost a year ago to the day. The culmination of twelve torturous hours. Of close encounters and of near misses. Of two arms wrapped around my neck, trying to show me that he wanted something more than a casual encounter of strange intensity and unusual hijinks. 

That he (somehow, impossibly) wanted _me_.

**Simon**

My heart is tap dancing in my chest, my pulse ferocious. I’m walking as quickly as I can without actually breaking out into a jog. Self control. I have it. Sometimes. I can do this. I’m almost there.

The sliding doors separating me from the arrivals gate stand like the entrance to the Mines of Moria. I stop just short. I breathe. And I step forward into the light.

**Baz**

I’ve never waited for someone at the airport before. Never hovered by the gate, excitement ravaging my nerves. I’m so ready to welcome that handsome fuck into my open arms and just hold him.

I can’t seem to calm whatever overflow of feelings is sending my body into emergency conditions, and so my heart is in my throat when something bronze catches the light and my attention. Curls. Golden and thick.

He’s still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

It’s rude to stare. But that herculean creature is mine and so I let my eyes rove over him—still ravenous for details.

Those simple blue eyes are on swivel—staring at the crowd, looking for someone.

Looking for me.

**Simon**

There're so many bodies, crowding as close as they can to the possibility of the person who they love. It’s almost as if we’re all pulled towards something—someone—and we can’t help but try to close the distance. Whether it’s inches or thousands of miles.

_Where is he?_

The world is filled with the soft glow of Christmas lights and a thousand empty faces, awash with grey. Nothing to latch on to. Nothing that stands out. 

Until I see _him_. 

Leaning against a stone pillar in fucking jeans, looking like a walking advert for the fancy Ray Bans he has tucked into his shirt. 

His eyes find mine. Blue disappearing into grey, disappearing into…this.

He’s here. He’s here for me.

**Baz**

There has never been anything subtle about Simon Snow and there certainly isn’t now. The bumbling idiot hauls his suitcase up into his arms and charges, pushing past all of the stationary lumps who are not fuelled by the same manic urgency. 

He’s here. 

He’s racing this way. 

I brace myself for impact and, this time, I’m ready when he crashes into me. 

**Simon**

I mash my face into the nook between Baz’s shoulder and collar bone; it is a perfect fit and one of the few places in this world where I feel completely safe. Baz is all around me—his arms squeezing me tight, his hair tickling my cheek (just as soft as I’d imagined), his smell filling my nostrils. 

When he finally loosens the vice grip around my shoulders, I step back, take both of his cheeks in my hands (both hands). “You’re here. For me.” 

I wanna taste him. 

“Of course I am,” he says. “No need to be overly sentimental about it—” 

And so I do. 

I lean in and I kiss the sarcasm from his lips. I feel his confusion relax into something needier, and let my thumb trace the sharp line of his jaw. 

Baz does not like public displays of any kind, and so the soft sound that slips between his self control sends a thrill of pleasure rippling through me. 

_He needs me._ I feel it in his hands clutching the back of my shirt, in the way his mouth covers mine (desperate and completely unyielding in a way that is so singularly _Baz_ ), in the soft shock as he shivers in my arms. 

“You missed me, then?” I mutter, pulling away just far enough to breathe. 

“You’re insufferable,” he says, letting his forehead rest against mine. I take him in, savouring the way his breaths feel against my cheeks. 

This is so much better than fighting. 

**Baz**

My forehead pressed to his, our words mingling in something far too intimate for this sterile space. I struggle to believe that we’ve landed _here._ That what started as a chance encounter above the clouds (“Where the world is thin,” my mother would say. “Where wishes can be made and answered”) could add up to this. I press a kiss to his forehead because I can, and isn’t that something? 

That a single day, when the stars fell all around us and I sat next to the most ridiculous man... When I gave a stranger a glimpse at my mother’s magic... when I asked him to make a wish...

I’d been searching for _something_ for so long that I hadn’t realized what I was actually looking for was _someone_. 

He is a match (inside my heart) and he is my match (in everything else).

“Perhaps the insistence that I fucking hate airports is a bit overstated. Collecting you,” I say, trying to control the smile that is keen to dispel my carefully crafted mystique, “has softened that opinion.”

“Shit, I still hate them,” he says, grinning up at me. Always up, by at least three inches. “But I don’t hate you.”

Fuck mistuque. I let a smile bloom across my face, taking his hand into mine and pulling him away from the crowds of salty PDA and too-sweet sentiment. 

“Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr!  
> [amywaterwings](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/amywaterwings/)


End file.
